Bag of Bones Common
What it’s about
Four years after the sudden death of his wife, bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is paralyzed by writer's block and haunted by relentless nightmares of their summer lake house, Sara Laughs, in western Maine. Drawn back to the cottage and its restless presences, he becomes entangled in a bitter custody battle over a young widowed mother and her little girl, pitting himself against a vindictive local millionaire. As the haunting deepens, Mike begins unearthing a buried history that the town would rather keep drowned.
Significance Published under King's own name in 1998, it won the Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Awards for best novel and was adapted into a 2011 A&E miniseries starring Pierce Brosnan; the TR-90/Castle Rock-adjacent Maine setting threads it into King's larger canon.
How to spot a true first 30-second check
A true 1st/1st needs BOTH the book and the jacket verified. A first-state jacket on a later or book-club book — or the reverse — is a married copy, not a first.
What to look for
- Number line MUST contain the 1: "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" — a missing 1 = second printing or later.
- $28.00 US price at the top of the front flap. No flap price = Book Club Edition (the single fastest BCE tell).
- BOMC trap: a club textblock can still carry a number line — match price + binding + 6½ x 9½" trim together.
- BCE blind-stamp: small indented dot/circle on the lower-right REAR board; smaller trim, thinner paper, often glued not sewn.
- Watch married jackets — a BCE or swapped priced jacket on a first textblock; verify the $28.00 flap is original.
- No documented text-state errata: identification reduces to the number line plus the unclipped $28.00 jacket.
Verified listings marker-checked
Each copy screened against the seller's own photos. ✓ confirmed = a photo shows the decisive marker; ⚠ not pictured = the shot to ask for before buying. Condition grades are as-pictured.
Buyer beware — verify before you buy. These are our screening opinions, read from each seller’s own photographs; we can misjudge a copy or misread an image. A listing marked “1st/1st confirmed” is not a guarantee — independently confirm the decisive book and jacket markers with the seller before any purchase. Authentication and the buying decision remain the buyer’s responsibility.
Fully verified unclipped first/first in NF/NF; one disclosed interior-jacket stain. At $21.99 it's at/below fair — a sound buy.
- Number line — Copyright row reads "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" with the numeral 1 legible — the decisive first-printing tell.
- Copyright — © 1998 Stephen King, Scribner, ISBN 0-684-85350-7 (trade-first ISBN) on copyright page and back jacket.
- Jacket price — Front flap priced "U.S. $28.00 / Can. $38.00", UNCLIPPED; rear barcode 52800 confirms first-state trade jacket.
- Binding — Quarter cream/white cloth spine + orange/tan boards, Scribner flame logo, full trade trim and sewn block — not a glued BCE.
✓ Decisive marker pictured — nothing outstanding to request.
A genuine Scribner 1998 first printing with both decisive tells legibly photographed — the complete number line and the unclipped $28.00 flap — and the jacket lifted off for a proper binding shot; the only frame never taken is the foot of the text block.
- Number line — The copyright page is shot square and reads the full row "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" with the numeral 1 plainly present (photo 7) — the decisive book tell for a Scribner first printing, matching the rubric row for row.
- Copyright — The same frame carries the Scribner flame over "1230 Avenue of the Americas / New York, NY 10020", "Copyright © 1998 by Stephen King", "DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING", "Set in Garamond No. 3" and ISBN 0-684-85350-7, with no separate "First Edition" line — exactly as this title's rubric expects (photo 7).
- Jacket price — The jacket is laid flat and the front inside flap prints "U.S. $28.00 / Can. $38.00" at the head, wholly unclipped (photo 13) — the decisive jacket tell — corroborated by the intact rear-panel retail barcode, 9 780684 853505 / ISBN 0-684-85350-7 / price code 52800 / 09982750 (photos 3 and 14), i.e. a priced trade jacket rather than the unpriced club issue.
- Binding — The jacket is removed for a proper look: cream cloth spine gilt-lettered "STEPHEN KING / BAG OF BONES" over the Scribner flame and "SCRIBNER", joined to orange paper-covered boards — the correct quarter-bound trade case (photo 5) — with the sewn block and its yellow headband visible at the head (photos 11 and 12).
- Dust jacket — The screaming woman's profile beside the misty lake cabin on the front and the cabin vignette above "A Haunted Love Story" on the rear are both shown (photos 0, 3 and 14), and the rear flap credits "JACKET DESIGN BY JOHN FONTANA" and "AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY VIRGINIA SHERWOOD" beneath King in the bomber jacket (photo 13).
- Endpapers / edges — The book is held open to plain cream endpapers, unprinted and with no ownership inscription in frame (photo 10), while the head and fore-edge are covered in photos 1, 4 and 11 — the head reading grey with dust-soiling, a condition point only; our rubric has no primary-source record of this title's endpapers or topstain, so none of it bears either way on the printing.
- Text-block foot — Not one of the fifteen frames shows the bottom edge of the block — the head (photos 1 and 11) and the fore-edge (photo 4) are covered, the foot never is — so the remainder mark our rubric tells us to look for can be neither found nor ruled out; ask for a straight-on shot of the book's bottom edge with the jacket off, a value question only with no bearing on the edition.
Fully verified unclipped first/first in NF/NF, light white-jacket soiling only. At $24.95 at/just under fair — a clean buy.
- Number line — Copyright page (photo 5) shows "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" with the numeral 1 — the decisive, complete first-printing tell.
- Copyright — © 1998 Stephen King, set in Garamond No. 3, ISBN 0-684-85350-7, Scribner imprint (photo 5).
- Jacket price — Front flap "U.S. $28.00 / Can. $38.00" first-state price, UNCLIPPED (photo 3); rear barcode carries ISBN + price (photo 2).
- Binding — Correct trade title page and spine with SCRIBNER imprint at base (photos 1, 4) — full trade binding.
✓ Decisive marker pictured — nothing outstanding to request.
A genuine Scribner 1998 first printing on both decisive tells — a crisp close-up of the number line and an unclipped $28.00 flap — but the jacket never comes off in any of the fourteen frames, so the cloth spine, its gilt lettering and the faces of the boards are corroborated only by the orange board edge showing beneath the jacket.
- Number line — A tight, well-lit close-up of the copyright page reads "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" with the numeral 1 unmistakably present (photo 8, and again in the wider spread at photo 7) — the decisive book tell, as legible as one could ask.
- Copyright — The same page shows the Scribner flame over "1230 Avenue of the Americas", "Copyright © 1998 by Stephen King", "DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING", "Set in Garamond No. 3" and, in the wider frame, ISBN 0-684-85350-7, with no separate "First Edition" line (photos 7 and 8).
- Jacket price — The front inside flap is photographed head-on and prints "U.S. $28.00 / Can. $38.00" at the top corner, unclipped and untrimmed (photo 6) — the decisive jacket tell — with the rear panel's full trade barcode, 9 780684 853505 / ISBN 0-684-85350-7 / price code 52800 / 09982750, shown intact in photo 2.
- Dust jacket — The front panel shows the screaming woman's profile beside the lake cabin, the spine carries the Scribner flame, and the rear repeats the cabin vignette above "A Haunted Love Story" (photos 0, 1 and 2), while the rear flap credits "JACKET DESIGN BY JOHN FONTANA" and "AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY VIRGINIA SHERWOOD" beneath King in the bomber jacket (photo 9).
- Endpapers / edges — The leaf beneath the folded front flap is plain cream and unprinted (photo 6, and the same at the rear in photo 9), and the long text-block edges are shot close from both ends of the book — the jacket art reads inverted in photo 3 and upright in photo 5, so head and foot are both covered — with no remainder mark in frame; endpapers and topstain are undocumented from a primary source for this title, so none of this settles the printing.
- Binding — The jacket stays on the book in all fourteen frames, so the cream cloth spine, its gilt lettering and the faces of the orange boards are never actually seen — only the board's orange edge peeking out beneath the jacket (photos 3, 5 and 9) — and the ruler frames prove nothing about trim, since photos 11 and 12 lay the rule across the jacket with no zero reference and photo 13 measures block thickness only; ask for the bare book stood spine-on plus straight-on shots of the front and rear boards, which settles the binding and the rear board (where a club blind-stamp would sit) in one go.
Genuine first/first, fairly priced at $17 — number line decisive; just verify the unshot front flap and rear-panel soiling.
- Number line — Copyright row reads "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" with the numeral 1 present (photo 1) — the decisive, complete first-printing tell.
- Copyright — © 1998 Stephen King, Scribner imprint, ISBN 0-684-85350-7 (trade-first ISBN) on copyright page and rear jacket.
- Jacket price — Rear barcode add-on 52800 = $28.00 trade price — confirms a priced trade (non-BCE) jacket.
- Dust jacket — Correct first-edition Scribner art: gold STEPHEN KING, misty lakehouse, "A Haunted Love Story" rear; no Book Club tells.
- Jacket price — Front inside flap not photographed — printed $28 flap price and clip status unverified (no clip observed).
- Dust jacket — Ask for a close shot of the rear-panel lower-right soiling/scuffing and small surface losses the notes flag.
Full identification detail & sourcescopyright · jacket · binding · book-club traps · print run · value · references
The US Scribner trade hardcover (1998) IS the true first edition. Unlike the early Dark Tower / Eyes of the Dragon / Cycle of the Werewolf cases, nothing precedes the trade in the US — no Grant/Philtrum/Land of Enchantment limited, no paperback original. The only contemporaneous limited is the UK Hodder & Stoughton signed limited (1/2000), issued to coincide with King's 25 Aug 1998 Royal Festival Hall (London) appearance and sold only at the Festival Hall bookshop — that is a UK item and does not unseat the US Scribner first. Note: a Book-of-the-Month Club hardcover (BOMC) was issued; the official King guide explicitly flags BOMC hardcover club issues for King titles of this era, so a 'first edition, first printing' textblock dressed in a BCE binding/jacket is the chief trap (see bceTells).
First-printing points at a glance
Dust jacket
Front: a dramatic image pairing a profile of a screaming/distressed woman with a small lake cabin (lake-house) in the background, title and author name in large type. Rear panel repeats the small-cabin-on-the-lake vignette motif. Rear flap/panel carries the Virginia Sherwood author photo (King in a brown bomber jacket). The "lake house + scream" imagery is the signature first-issue jacket look.
Art / design: Jacket design by John Fontana. Black-and-white cover image by Frank Oudeman; color photograph cover image by Brown Brothers. Author photograph (rear panel/flap, King in a brown bomber jacket) by Virginia Sherwood.
Also watch for: (1) Married jackets — a BCE or later-printing jacket placed on a first-printing book, or a priced jacket swapped from another copy; verify the $28.00 flap price AND that the jacket is not a BCE issue. (2) Price-clipped jackets — corner removed to hide a club/later price; value reduced. (3) Mixed BCE/first copies — first-printing trade textblock in a BCE binding/jacket or vice versa; cross-check number line, the quarter cream-cloth/orange-board binding, the 6½ x 9½" trim, AND the jacket price together (a BOMC hardcover was issued for this title, making this the most common trap). (4) Ex-library copies — stamps, pockets, spine labels; much lower value. (5) Remainder marks on the bottom text-block edge. (6) Facsimile/reproduction jackets — newer, glossier, off-color printing. (7) "Signed" claims — distinguish a true title-page King signature from the UK limited's bookplate signature; aftermarket slipcases do not make a trade copy a "limited."
Print run & scarcity
Publisher-announced first printing, reported in the trade press at publication. Publishers Weekly's review page for the title (ISBN 9780684853505) states "1.26 million first printing." stephenkingcollector.com's Bag of Bones first-edition page independently states the print run as "1,260,000," both as the opening figure and reiterated in.
First-state points & errata
No documented text errata / textual state change separating first-state from later-state first printings is recorded in the standard references for this title (unlike, e.g., 'Salem's Lot's Father Cody or Pet Sematary's caretakers-date jacket states). Identification reduces to the single number line plus the unclipped $28.00 jacket. Minor binding-cloth variance is reported by dealers (spine cloth described variously as cream/white/beige and boards as orange/tan) but reads as descriptive/toning variance within the single first printing, not a recognized priority state. First-state points beyond the number line / price: none documented.
Limited & signed editions
UK Hodder & Stoughton signed limited edition: limited to 2000 numbered copies, signed by King on a bookplate that also serves as the colophon (affixed to the half-title), supplied in a slipcase; issued for King's 25 Aug 1998 Royal Festival Hall (London) appearance and sold only at the Festival Hall bookshop. No US Scribner numbered/lettered limited or publisher's traycased edition is documented. (Signed US trade firsts exist — author signature on the title page — and are sometimes housed in aftermarket custom slipcases, e.g. the Bauman copy, but those are signed trade copies, not a publisher's limited.) Advance Reading Copies / uncorrected proofs exist (US Scribner ARC documented by L.W. Currey; UK Hodder proof in a green slipcase).
Market value confirmed sales
$15–$40 (typical ~$25)
Assumes a genuine first edition / first printing in near-fine to fine condition (clean copy, unclipped jacket). Lesser condition is worth less.
Confirmed sales: SIGNED fine/fine cluster: Type Punch Matrix listed near-fine signed copy ~$1,750 and Rare Book Sleuth fine/fine signed ~$1,500 (AbeBooks dealer records, current/2024-2026); Second Story Books signed copy sold (good/good-) ~$900 (secondstorybooks.com, marked sold). UNSIGNED: true-first fine/fine trade copies routinely close on eBay sold and AbeBooks in the ~$40–80 band (e.g., "as new" 1st/1st dealer copies listed ~$50–75, 2024-2026). NOTE: these are dealer sold/listing records, not a named auction hammer — no clean Heritage/PBA realized price was retrievable for the US trade first.
Book-club edition (the trap): $5–20. The Book-of-the-Month Club edition (BOMC main selection) is the dominant trap — visually near-identical, same textblock, but worth a small fraction. Ex-library and clipped-jacket copies fall to $5–15. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.
[Audit-corrected from $30-1500: value is for a genuine UNSIGNED trade first in fine/fine; signed/limited copies excluded.] Condition sensitivity is moderate for the unsigned trade first (it is NOT scarce — huge print run), so jacket freshness on the white spine (toning/foxing is common) and an unclipped $28.00 price are what separate a $25 copy from a $90 copy. The signed premium is enormous and is essentially the entire collectible value: a flat-signed fine/fine copy is ~15–30x an unsigned one; a dated/place-inscribed or association copy can push toward $2,000+. King's signature is heavily forged — for any signed copy, third-party authentication (PSA/Beckett/JSA) or impeccable dealer provenance is mandatory or the premium evaporates. THE SINGLE BIGGEST FAKE-SEPARATOR FOR THIS TITLE: distinguishing the Scribner trade first from the Book-of-the-Month Club edition. Both share the full number line ending in "1," so the number line ALONE does NOT prove a trade first. The true trade first has (1) the $28.00 price on the front jacket flap (unclipped) and (2) NO blind-stamp/gilt dot on the lower corner of the rear board; the BCE has a no-price jacket and a small stamped dot on the back board, with a lighter, slightly smaller binding. (Note: the prompt's "Doubleday gutter code" point does not apply here — that is a different publisher/era; Bag of Bones is a Scribner book identified by number line + $28 price + no BCE dot.)
- https://www.firstandfine.com/product/king-stephen-1998-bag-of-bones-us-signed-first-edition/
- https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/bag-of-bones/author/stephen-king/signed/
- https://www.secondstorybooks.com/pages/books/1384339/stephen-king/bag-of-bones-signed?soldItem=true
- https://www.biblio.com/bag-of-bones-by-stephen-king/work/1956
- https://www.ebay.com/p/799412
- http://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/bagofbones.html — print run 1,260,000; cover price $28.00; 1st-printing number line
- https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/bag-of-bones/author/stephen-king/first-edition/ — unsigned fine/near-fine firsts cluster $10–$16, pristine to ~$20
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/115804947063 — RARE 1ST EDITION fine w/DJ listing
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/135496529865 — fine 1st/1st (asking ~$79, excluded as inflated ask)
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/335564096402 — true first 1998 Scribner HC/DJ comp
Sources
- https://stephenking.com/other/identifying_first_editions.pdf
- https://www.firstandfine.com/product/king-stephen-1998-bag-of-bones-us-signed-first-edition/
- https://www.raptisrarebooks.com/product/bag-of-bones-stephen-king-first-edition-signed-1998-rare/
- https://www.burnsiderarebooks.com/pages/books/140943872/stephen-king/bag-of-bones
- https://www.columbiabooksonline.com/pages/books/111729/stephen-king/bag-of-bones
- https://www.lwcurrey.com/pages/books/128893/stephen-king/bag-of-bones
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/335564096402
- https://www.rarebookcellar.com/pages/books/174257/stephen-king/bag-of-bones
- https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/king-stephen/bag-of-bones/128888.aspx
- https://johnatkinsonbooks.co.uk/book/stephen-king-bag-of-bones-signed-limited-edition-383-2000/
- https://www.biblio.com/book/bag-bones-stephen-king/d/1546505816
- https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/bag-of-bones/author/stephen-king/first-edition/
- https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780684853505
- http://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/bagofbones.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_of_Bones
Verification notes: VERIFY task resolved against primary text. (a) Number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" on CP — CONFIRMED verbatim, official stephenking.com guide PDF read directly (Bag of Bones row), cross-confirmed by AbeBooks/eBay/Bauman/First & Fine. (b) DJ price "$28.00" — CONFIRMED, same official guide DJ-price column + multiple dealers. (c) "First Edition" CP statement — RESOLVED as a CORRECTION to the draft's PARTIAL: the official King guide keys this title's ID to the NUMBER LINE ONLY and lists NO separate "First Edition" statement for Bag of Bones. The draft's hedge that Scribner-era firsts 'generally' print a "First Edition" line is NOT supported for this title by the guide — adjacent entries that DO carry that line (e.g. Wizard and Glass) print it explicitly, and Bag of Bones does not. firstPrintingStatement updated to make the number line the sole decisive point and drop the "First Edition"-line assumption. (d) Trim size 6½ x 9½ x 1.6" — CONFIRMED from guide (added; not in original draft). (e) Binding (orange paper boards / quarter cream-white cloth / gilt) — CONFIRMED across dealers; First & Fine confirms white spine, Bauman 'half white cloth gilt'. Dealer cloth/board color variance (cream/white/beige; orange/tan) noted as descriptive, not a recognized priority state. (f) Jacket credits (Fontana design / Oudeman B&W / Brown Brothers color / Sherwood author photo) — corroborated by dealer descriptions; retained. (g) Canadian price $38.00 — could NOT be independently confirmed from a primary photo this pass; downgraded from 'confirmed' to plausible/UNVERIFIED in jacketPriceFirst. (h) BOMC hardcover club issue — CONFIRMED to exist for King titles of this era per the official guide (it flags BOMC hardcover issuance in the same table region), strengthening the mixed-copy / BCE-binding caution. (i) Topstain/endpaper specifics — remain UNVERIFIED from a primary source. NEW INDEPENDENT SOURCES added not in the draft: firstandfine.com (white-spine + signed-first confirmation), raptisrarebooks.com, burnsiderarebooks.com, columbiabooksonline.com, lwcurrey.com (ARC).