Blaze Common
What it’s about
Clayton "Blaze" Blaisdell Jr. is a hulking, brain-damaged petty criminal, left simple and scarred after a brutal childhood, who has drifted through small-time grifts in cold rural Maine. Haunted by the voice of his late partner-in-crime George, Blaze sets out to pull off the ultimate score they once dreamed up together: kidnapping the infant heir of a wealthy family for ransom. What begins as a hardened con job slowly becomes something far more tender and dangerous as the gentle giant finds himself alone with the baby he was only supposed to hold for money.
Significance A "trunk novel" King wrote in 1973 and long considered lost, finally published in 2007 under his Richard Bachman pseudonym (with a King foreword), proceeds donated to charity — an Of Mice and Men-flavored crime tragedy and one of the rare latter-day Bachman titles.
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
- Demand the pairing: "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" AND a number line with a 1 — neither alone clinches it.
- BCE tell: "Book Club Edition" on the lower front flap with NO $25.00 price, thinner paper, smaller trim, often glued not sewn.
- Club blind-stamp: a small indented dot/square/circle on the lower-right of the rear board flags a club copy.
- Confirm the intact "US $25.00" on the front flap; a price-clipped flap is a condition hit and a fake-first dodge.
- Watch married jackets — verify the number line inside matches a jacket that still bears the price.
- The UK Hodder & Stoughton 2007 hardcover is the first UK, NOT the true first; the Scribner US printing is.
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.
Genuine $25.00 first/first, NF book; a rear-jacket retail sticker caps the jacket at VG+, but $17.49 leaves real margin.
- Copyright — Copyright page states "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" — the decisive first-printing statement, legibly pictured.
- Number line — Full row "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10" present, lowest numeral 1 = first printing.
- Jacket price — Front flap printed US $25.00 / Can. $32.00, unclipped — correct first-state price.
- Dust jacket — Scribner trade jacket, flame logo top-right, no "Book Club Edition" wording; ISBN 978-1-4165-5484-4 matches trade first.
- Dust jacket — Rear jacket carries an applied "SBTB Value #3" retail sticker (caps jacket at VG+, may lift finish if removed) — ask for a close shot of that panel.
Clean $25.00 first/first in NF/F, decisive plate shown; at $18 well under fair value — the strong copy here.
- Copyright — Photo 4 shows "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" — decisive statement, legible.
- Number line — Full line "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10", lowest numeral 1 = first (photo 4).
- Jacket price — Front flap U.S. $25.00 / Can. $32.00, unclipped first-state (photo 3); jacket print-code 0607.
- Dust jacket — First-state rear panel "BIG MOTHER..." and Fulbrook III design; ISBN barcode matches (photos 9/10).
- Endpapers / edges — Spine and page edges not photographed — ask the seller to shoot them to rule out sunning or foxing on this otherwise NF/F copy.
Genuine $25.00 first/first, NF book; sticker residue on the front jacket shaves it, but $20 still beats fair value.
- Copyright — Copyright page reads "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" — decisive statement, pictured.
- Number line — Full row "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10", lowest numeral 1 = first printing.
- Jacket price — Front flap U.S. $25.00 / Can. $32.00, unclipped first-state, pictured.
- Dust jacket — Correct Scribner trade jacket, flame device on spine and title/copyright pages.
- Dust jacket — Partly-removed retail sticker with adhesive residue on upper-right front panel, plus rub at spine head — ask for close shots of both.
Fully confirmed $25.00 first/first, effectively Fine/Fine across 16 photos; at $24.99 a clean, fairly-priced copy.
- Copyright — Photo 8 clearly shows "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" — decisive statement, legible.
- Number line — Full first-printing line "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10", lowest numeral 1 (photo 8).
- Jacket price — Front flap U.S. $25.00 / Can. $32.00, unclipped (photos 6/13); rear "0607" date code + 52500 retail code.
- Binding — Blue cloth quarter-spine + gray paper boards, gilt spine title (photos 10-12) — trade binding, no BCE tells.
✓ Decisive marker pictured — nothing outstanding to request.
The book block is proven a Scribner first printing on one legible copyright-page frame, and the jacket photographed is the correct trade issue by its art and rear panel — what is outstanding is the front flap itself, which appears in no photograph and is not described, so the $25.00 flap price and its unclipped state are neither pictured nor claimed.
- Copyright statement — Photo 7 opens the copyright page and reads cleanly edge to edge — "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" beneath the Scribner flame and the Simon & Schuster / 1230 Avenue of the Americas imprint block, with Copyright (c) 2007 by Stephen King, LCCN 2007015354 and ISBN-13 978-1-4165-5484-4 / ISBN-10 1-4165-5484-X — the decisive book tell, photographed rather than asserted.
- Number line — The same frame (photo 7) carries the full row "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10" with 1 as the lowest numeral, so this is the first printing — and because the row sits a few lines below the edition statement in one unbroken shot, the two cannot have been borrowed from different books.
- Dust jacket — Photos 1, 2 and 3 show the correct trade jacket in full — the snow-track drive and mansion, "A NOVEL BY RICHARD BACHMAN" over "FOREWORD BY STEPHEN KING", the orange Scribner flame at the front panel's upper corner and again at the spine foot, and the "BIG MOTHER" rear blurb — with no "Book Club Edition" wording on any panel photographed.
- Jacket rear panel — Photo 3 shows the "0607" June-2007 code printed above an intact ISBN barcode with the 52500 add-on encoding $25.00, consistent with the trade issue — corroborating only, since a shared jacket plate can carry the same code and barcode, so this is no substitute for the front-flap price the rubric asks for.
- Binding — The head and tail views (photos 5 and 6) show the two-tone quarter binding under the jacket — a blue cloth spine strip against grey panels, the blue band visible at the spine corner and a clean white block — though the spine's copper foil lettering stays covered by the jacket and the sewing is not demonstrable from these angles.
- Edges — Photos 4, 5 and 6 show the fore, head and tail edges plain white and unmarked — no topstain, no ex-library stamping, and no remainder mark on the bottom edge where it would sit, a point that bears on value rather than on edition; the endpapers are never opened to the camera, and our own record leaves that detail unverified in any case.
- Jacket price (front flap) — Every frame shows the jacket closed or laid flat, so the "U.S. $25.00 / Can. $32.00" at the upper corner of the front flap appears in no photograph — and the seller's one-line description ("New, never read, some shelf wear on cover") never mentions the price or a clip, so the unclipped state is neither pictured nor claimed — ask for a straight-on shot of the front flap's top corner with the price legible and the corner uncut, since the rear-panel barcode reads the same on a clipped jacket.
Full identification detail & sourcescopyright · jacket · binding · book-club traps · print run · value · references
The Scribner US trade hardcover, "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007," IS the true first edition and first printing. No small-press limited (Grant/Philtrum/Cemetery Dance/Land of Enchantment) precedes it, and it is not a paperback original. King is American and the US Scribner printing is the true first; the UK Hodder & Stoughton 2007 hardcover is a separate, simultaneous-ish first UK edition (secondary to collectors).
First-printing points at a glance
Dust jacket
Glossy pictorial dust jacket. Front panel shows a wintry/snow scene with an automobile, "Blaze A Novel" and "Richard Bachman" titling; rear panel/flaps carry the King foreword framing and "Bachman" author copy. Includes King's foreword (which acknowledges the Bachman = King identity) and the bonus short story "Memory" (first published in Tin House, 2006). The novel's manuscript dates to ~1973.
Art / design: UNVERIFIED — the specific jacket designer/photographer (sometimes attributed to a Scribner in-house designer) is not confirmed in the available collector sources; do not guess. Verify off the rear jacket flap credit line of a copy in hand.
Also watch for: (1) Price-clipped jackets passed off at first-printing value — confirm the intact "US $25.00" on the front flap. (2) Married jackets — a later-printing or BCE book in a (clipped) jacket, or vice versa; verify the number line inside matches a jacket that still bears the price. (3) Ex-library copies (stamps, pockets, spine labels) — low value. (4) Remainder marks on the bottom text-block edge — depress value; common on this title. (5) Book-club copies mislabeled "first edition" — check for the number line containing 1 AND the "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" statement together. (6) UK Hodder & Stoughton first sold as the "true first" — it is the first UK, not the true first.
Print run & scarcity
Title verified: this is Blaze (Scribner, 1st Scribner hardcover edition June 12, 2007, by Richard Bachman / Stephen King, ISBN 978-1-4165-5484-4, $25.00, 304 pp). NOT to be confused with the ~30,000 Carrie figure — Carrie's first typescript was literally typed on the same Olivetti, but they are different books. First-printing ID points: copyright page reads 'First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007' with a full number line '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10' and an unclipped US $25.00 jacket price. PRINT RUN: No reliable first-printing quantity has ever been published by Scribner or recorded in the King-collecting community. This was a mainstream, high-volume modern Scribner trade hardcover that debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, so the true print run was certainly large (very likely six figures), but no announced/cited number could be found — dealers and bibliographies omit it precisely because the book is common and unscarce. No signed/numbered/lettered LIMITED trade edition of Blaze was issued (royalties were donated to The Haven Foundation; it was released as a wide commercial edition, not a small-press limited). A separate Simon & Schuster Audio release and later trade paperbacks/reissues also exist but carry no published first-print figure. Do NOT invent a number; if a specific figure is needed it would have to come from a 2007 Publishers Weekly announcement or Scribner's internal records, which were not located.
First-state points & errata
No documented errata or first-state vs later-state textual change separating first-printing first-state copies has been confirmed in the collector record. Treat this as UNVERIFIED for any known typo point. Identification rests on the copyright statement + number line + correct $25.00 jacket, not on a textual error point.
Limited & signed editions
No widely-documented signed/numbered slipcased or traycased small-press limited of Blaze is confirmed in the available sources (UNVERIFIED — no Grant/Cemetery Dance/Subterranean limited located). Some copies on the market are signed by Stephen King on the title page (in-person/event signatures), which carry a premium but are NOT a separate published limited edition. A Scribner audiobook and the first UK Hodder & Stoughton 2007 hardcover also exist as distinct editions.
Market value estimate
~$30–$125
Assumes a genuine first edition / first printing in near-fine to fine condition (clean copy, unclipped jacket). Lesser condition is worth less.
Sale evidence no verified realized price: Signed first edition, fine/fine: ~$1,250 (rare-book trade/dealer market, 2023–2025). Unsigned first, Very Fine, full number line + unclipped $25 jacket: $125 dealer ask, copies changing hands ~$40–125 (VeryFineBooks / firstandfine, 2024–2025). Unsigned reading/near-fine copies: routinely $13–25 on eBay sold/completed (2024–2025). Note: no Heritage/PBA/Rare Book Hub auction records surfaced — this title is below typical formal-auction thresholds, so comps are dealer + eBay sold.
No confirmed sale found, so this is rated at no less than its original jacket price — a true first/first should hold at least retail in near-fine/fine condition. Soft estimate from dealer listings (treat as approximate): $30–125 unsigned (true first, fine/fine, unclipped); $400–1,250 signed by King
Book-club edition (the trap): Book-club edition (BOMC/BCE): roughly $5–15. Same "First Scribner hardcover edition June 2007" statement and jacket, but NO number line and a blind-stamp on the rear board — near worthless to collectors and the #1 mislisted "first." — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.
Condition-sensitive at the margin but the ceiling is low because the print run was huge (King was a #1 bestseller by 2007 — no scarcity). Unsigned, the spread is essentially $15 (reading copy) to ~$125 (fine/fine, sharp unclipped $25 jacket, no remainder mark). The entire collectible premium is the SIGNATURE: a King-signed first jumps to the $400–1,250 range (full inscriptions and PSA/JSA-authenticated copies at the top). THE SINGLE BIGGEST DISCRIMINATOR FOR THIS TITLE: the full number line "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10" present on the copyright page AND the unclipped US $25.00 jacket price. The book-club edition carries the identical "First Scribner hardcover edition" wording, so the stated edition line alone proves nothing — a true first MUST show the number line ending in "...10" and have NO blind-stamp/dot on the rear board. Disregard the "Doubleday gutter code" point from the brief: Blaze is a Scribner book, not Doubleday — that point does not apply here. Watch also for remainder-marked copies (spray/marker on bottom edge) which kill collector value, and married/facsimile jackets.
- https://veryfinebooks.com/stephen-king-blaze-first-edition-first-printing-very-fine/
- https://www.firstandfine.com/product/king-stephen-2007-blaze-us-signed-first-edition/
- https://www.rarebookcellar.com/pages/books/188622/stephen-king-richard-bachman/blaze
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/235734078680
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaze_(novel)
Sources
- https://veryfinebooks.com/stephen-king-blaze-first-edition-first-printing-very-fine/
- https://www.rarebookcellar.com/pages/books/188622/stephen-king-richard-bachman/blaze
- https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Blaze-First-Edition-Bachman-Richard-aka/31279660609/bd
- https://www.garysvintagebooks.com/product-page/blaze-a-novel-by-richard-bachman-stephen-king
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaze_(novel)
- https://johnatkinsonbooks.co.uk/book/richard-bachman-stephen-king-blaze-first-uk-edition-2007/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaze_(novel)
- https://www.rarebookcellar.com/pages/books/188622/stephen-king-richard-bachman/blaze
- https://veryfinebooks.com/stephen-king-blaze-first-edition-first-printing-very-fine/
- https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Blaze-First-Edition-Bachman-Richard-aka/31279660609/bd
- https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/Blaze
Verification notes: Verification pass: Number line, copyright statement, and $25.00 front-flap price each confirmed on at least 3 independent collector listings (veryfinebooks, rarebookcellar, abebooks). Binding (gray/grey-green boards, blue spine, copper foil spine lettering) confirmed on 2 sources (search synthesis of multiple abebooks listings + garysvintagebooks "grey/green and blue boards with metal foil lettering along spine"). Wikipedia confirms publisher/date (Scribner, June 12 2007), ISBN 978-1-4165-5484-4, the bonus short story "Memory," and King's foreword. Could NOT confirm: jacket designer/photographer credit, topstain/endpaper notes, any first-state typo, and any published small-press signed/numbered limited — all marked UNVERIFIED rather than guessed. StephenKing.com identifying-first-editions PDF was unreadable (binary) and not usable as a source for this title.