11 Scribes · Stephen King & Bachman · Viking & Putnam (1979-1997)

Cycle of the Werewolf Collectible

illustrated by Berni (Bernie) Wrightson
1983 · The Land of Enchantment (Christopher Zavisa), Westland, Michigan
First-edition cover of Cycle of the Werewolf
First-edition jacket (first (Wikipedia infobox)) · source

What it’s about

In the small town of Tarker's Mills, Maine, something inhuman wakes with every full moon — and across twelve months, from a snowbound January to a New Year's Eve, the killings track the lunar calendar with grim precision. As terror tightens its grip on the townsfolk month by month, a wheelchair-bound boy named Marty Coslaw becomes the one person paying close enough attention to suspect the truth. A slim, almanac-shaped horror told one chapter per moon.

Significance Published 1983 as an illustrated novella with full-color paintings by comics legend Bernie Wrightson; King adapted it himself into the 1985 film "Silver Bullet," and it stands as one of his classic small-town-Maine horrors.

Value~$450–$900 estimatenear-fine / fine

How to spot a true first 30-second check

★ BookISBN on the copyright leaf — the unsigned 1983 trade hardcover carries ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 (= 9780960382828) under The Land of Enchantment / Christopher Zavisa imprint (Westland, MI), 114 pp, © 1983, with NO 'First Edition' slug and NO number line. There is exactly one hardcover printing and no book-club edition, so a correctly-bound 1983 Land of Enchantment copy IS the first; the only intra-edition discriminator is the LIMITATION PAGE — the 350 signed/numbered copies (Presentation State of 8 with a hand-written notice; Collector's #1-100 with a laid-in original Wrightson pencil drawing; Deluxe #101-350 with the Wrightson portfolio) are signed by BOTH King and Wrightson, whereas the 7,500 trade copies bear no limitation statement and no signatures. An unsigned copy with no numbered limitation leaf can never be a signed limited, regardless of binding or slipcase.
★ JacketNo decisive jacket tell exists for this title and none should be invented. The Wrightson color-pictorial werewolf jacket is the SAME artwork across the trade and the signed-limited states, so the jacket cannot distinguish issue or printing — it carries no number line and no confirmed printed flap price. Treat the jacket as a CONDITION axis only: it suffers a well-documented production flaw (white spotting) plus near-universal red/spine sunning, so an unfaded, unclipped, unspotted jacket is what separates a top-band copy from a reader. The '$8.95' price belongs to the 1985 Signet paperback and must never be transferred to this jacket. Because the jacket art is shared, identification rests on the BOOK block (ISBN + limitation page); a 'first-state jacket' point would be a phantom.

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.

Copyright ★ book tell1983 Land of Enchantment (Christopher Zavisa), Westland MI; trade ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 (= 9780960382828) on the copyright leaf — the decisive, photographable book tell; no 'First Edition' slug, no number line.
Number lineNone on any 1983 hardcover state. ('First Signet Edition April 1985 / 1 2 3...9' is the LATER paperback, not the first.)
Gutter code—n/a
Jacket priceUNVERIFIED — no confirmed printed flap price; the '$8.95' belongs to the 1985 Signet PAPERBACK, do not transfer it to the hardcover.
BindingFull brown leatherette / mottled boards over boards, single-tone, gilt-stamped front + spine; sewn oversize quarto ~9x11, 114 pp.
Dust jacketColor pictorial Berni Wrightson werewolf art; known white-spotting flaw + heavy spine sunning — jacket condition is the value driver.
Endpapers / edgesIllustrated Wrightson endpapers (confirmed); topstain UNVERIFIED.
The verification ledgerevery marker, graded — verified · asserted · unverified

Verified seen on a confirmed copy Asserted sourced, not yet photographed Unverified thin / contested

A true 1st/1st must show

  • Verified Publisher / imprint book — Title and copyright leaf read 'The Land of Enchantment' (Christopher Zavisa, Westland, MI), 1983 — the one and only hardcover publisher. Signet/NAL (1985) or Gallery/Simon & Schuster (2017) on the spine or copyright page means it is NOT the first.
  • Asserted ISBN book — Trade hardcover ISBN is 0-9603828-2-8 (9780960382828), legibly printed on the copyright leaf — the decisive, photographable book tell. Confirmed across six-plus independent dealer records.
  • Asserted Limitation page book — The 7,500 unsigned trade copies have NO limitation statement and NO signatures. A numbered limitation leaf (Presentation 8 hand-written; Collector's #1-100; Deluxe #101-350) signed by BOTH King and Wrightson marks a signed limited — a separate, far higher tier.
  • Asserted Statement / number line book — Correct first carries NO 'First Edition' slug and NO number line. Identify by imprint + ISBN + (for unsigned) the absence of a limitation leaf — never by a printed point that does not exist on this small-press title.
  • Asserted Binding & format book — Oversize sewn quarto (~9 x 11), 114 pp, full brown leatherette / mottled boards, single-tone, gilt-stamped on front board and spine; Wrightson-illustrated endpapers; 24 full-page Wrightson plates (12 color / 12 b&w).
  • Asserted Jacket art jacket — Wrightson color-pictorial werewolf jacket — identical across trade and signed-limited states, so it confirms the title but not the issue. Condition (white-spotting flaw + spine sunning) is the value driver, not an identification point.

Disqualifies it — book-club or later

  • Asserted 1985 Signet paperback / Silver Bullet tie-in — A mass-market paperback reading 'First Signet Edition April 1985 / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9' (or the Silver Bullet movie tie-in repackage) is the LATER, separate edition — routinely mislisted as 'the first.' Not a hardcover, not a first.
  • Asserted '$8.95' cover price — The $8.95 belongs to the 1985 Signet paperback. Seeing $8.95 on the item — or a seller transferring it to the hardcover jacket — flags the paperback, not the Land of Enchantment trade first.
  • Asserted 2017 Gallery / Simon & Schuster reissue — A 2017 Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster hardcover reprint is a modern reissue ($10-$20), not the 1983 first — check the copyright page publisher and date.
  • Asserted Wrong ISBN / wrong imprint — Any copyright-leaf ISBN other than 0-9603828-2-8, or any publisher other than The Land of Enchantment for the 1983 hardcover, disqualifies it as the trade first.

Proves nothing — shared traps

  • Shared Shared Wrightson jacket art — The pictorial werewolf jacket is identical on the trade and the signed limited, so a 'first jacket' proves only the title — never the issue or a 1st/1st. It cannot stand as a decisive jacket tell.
  • Shared Slipcase is NOT a reliable trade-vs-limited tell — Several reputable dealers describe the trade with a 'custom illustrated slipcase,' while King's official page lists slipcases only for the Collector's/Deluxe limiteds. A slipcase alone therefore proves nothing — do not treat its presence as a signed/limited point or its absence as 'wrong.' Rely on the numbered limitation leaf + signatures.
  • Shared Brown gilt-stamped binding — The brown leatherette/mottled-board gilt binding is common to BOTH the trade and the signed limited, so the binding distinguishes the title — not the issue. Only the limitation page separates trade from signed.
  • Shared Number / '#... of 350' without signatures — A copy number is only meaningful with the printed limitation leaf AND both King and Wrightson signatures; an unnumbered, unsigned trade copy is not a 'low-numbered first.'

What to look for

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.

Seller’s photo of this copy
✓ 1st/1st confirmed$389leedmitry ↗
bench-verified Fair Near Fine book / VG (VG-minus) jacket

A genuine 1983 Land of Enchantment oversize quarto — the only hardcover this title ever had — with the copyright leaf, the gilt-stamped leatherette boards and the whole unpriced front flap all legibly photographed; the one leaf never shown is the limitation page, which separates the 7,500 trade copies from the 350 signed limiteds and so bears on which state this is, not on whether it is a first.

✓ Confirmed in the seller’s photos
  • Copyright — Photo 3 gives the entire copyright leaf, sharp and square to the lens — "©1983 by The Land of Enchantment," text ©1983 Stephen King, illustrations ©1983 Berni Wrightson, over the Christopher Zavisa / 1870 Wilshire Parkway / Westland, Michigan 48185 imprint block.
  • Binding — Jacket off in photos 4 and 5: brown mottled leatherette over boards, gilt "CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF / BY / STEPHEN KING" on the front board and gilt "STEPHEN KING" with "The Land of Enchantment" at the spine foot — the decisive book tell, crisp and correct for the 1983 quarto.
  • Trade ISBN — That same leaf prints both issue numbers one above the other — "ISBN 0-9603828-1-X Signed, limited edition" and "ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 Trade hardcover edition" (photo 3) — so it is the jacket that carries the trade number alone, at the foot of the front flap (photo 2) and at the lower right of the rear panel (photo 13), which fixes the jacket as the trade-issue jacket rather than the book block's state.
  • Jacket price — Photo 2 shows the front flap entire — the one turned in at the left of the front endpaper spread — head corner intact and unclipped, blank but for the trade ISBN at its foot: this jacket prints no retail price at all, so the widely quoted $8.95 (which belongs to the 1985 Signet paperback) has nothing here to attach to and there is no price-clip question to answer.
  • Number line — Photo 3 shows the leaf bare of any number line and of any "First Edition" slug, exactly as every 1983 hardcover state reads — a consistency check rather than a discriminator, since no state carries one.
  • Endpapers — Photo 2 opens on the Wrightson illustrated endpaper — the black-and-white snowbound scene with the artist's 1983 date in the plate — and the block edges show plain and unstained in photos 8 and 9, though our rubric records no confirmed topstain to grade that against.
  • Dust jacket — Wrightson's color pictorial werewolf art on the front panel (photo 1), the spine reading "CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF / STEPHEN KING / The Land of Enchantment" (photo 12) and the Wrightson roundel on the rear (photo 13) — art shared by both 1983 states, so the jacket is a condition axis on this title and never an issue point.
⚠ Not pictured — ask before buying
  • Limitation page — Never photographed, and because the copyright leaf prints both ISBNs nothing in these 13 frames rules on trade versus signed-limited — ask for the leaf immediately following the title page, where a numbered limitation statement over the King and Wrightson signatures would sit if this were one of the 350.
  • Endpaper ink — Photo 2 carries a blue ballpoint scrawl across the illustrated endpaper that the seller's description never mentions and that will not resolve at this angle — ask for a flat, well-lit close-up to settle whether it is an inscription or a previous owner's name, a provenance and condition question rather than an edition one.
Seller’s photo of this copy
✓ 1st/1st confirmed$825lastexitbooks ↗
bench-verified Pass Near Fine book / VG+ jacket

Plate-proven 1983 trade first, but a sunned-spine reader wearing a fine-copy price — worth ~$525, not $825.

✓ Confirmed in the seller’s photos
  • Copyright — Land of Enchantment / Christopher Zavisa imprint legibly photographed on the copyright page, with NO limitation/signature page — the correct unsigned-trade fingerprint.
  • Edition fingerprint (Trade ISBN 0-9603828-2-8) — Trade ISBN shown on the copyright leaf and echoed on the rear flap (not the signed/numbered limited) — true trade hardcover, no Signet sleight of hand.
  • Dust jacket — Original Wrightson jacket, not married — but the spine is plainly sunned (VG+) and there's foxing in the text block.
⚠ Not pictured — ask before buying
  • Jacket price — Front flap not photographed at full res; the 1983 trade flap price is unverified in our rubric — ask for a sharp front-flap shot ($8.95 is the Signet PB, not this).
Seller’s photo of this copy
likely first$350richtpatterson ↗
bench-verified Fair Near Fine book / VG (arguably VG-) jacket

Genuine 1983 Land of Enchantment trade, but a hard-worn VG jacket at a fine-copy ask — offer near $225, not $350.

✓ Confirmed in the seller’s photos
  • Copyright — Wrightson's 1983-dated plates pictured inside, fixing it to the Land of Enchantment trade issue, not the 1985 Signet paperback.
  • Edition fingerprint (Trade ISBN 0-9603828-2-8) — Trade ISBN legible on the rear jacket panel (this is the trade issue, not the signed/numbered limited) — proves the 1983 Zavisa trade hardcover, not a limited.
  • Dust jacket — Wrightson pictorial wrapper present but VG/VG-: chipped at spine head, creased across the back, rubbed throughout — and the jacket carries the money here.
⚠ Not pictured — ask before buying
  • Binding — Decisive tell: brown gilt-stamped leatherette/mottled quarto boards not actually shown — ask for full spine + front-board shots to seat the binding.
  • Copyright — Title/copyright leaf not legibly pictured — request the Land of Enchantment / Zavisa imprint page at full res to seat the edition on its own plate.
  • Jacket price — No printed trade-jacket flap price confirmed ($8.95 is the Signet PB); price-state n/d — ask the seller to shoot both flaps.
Full identification detail & sourcescopyright · jacket · binding · book-club traps · print run · value · references
Is this the true first?Yes — the original 1983 Land of Enchantment book is a true HARDCOVER first, and the only hardcover edition of this title. It is NOT a paperback original. Note the SIGNED LIMITED states (Presentation 8 / Collector's 100 / Deluxe 250 = the 350-copy signed run) PRECEDE/outrank the 7,500-copy unsigned trade hardcover as the true-first issue; all share the same 1983 sheets and dating.
The true first edition is the LAND OF ENCHANTMENT 1983 oversize illustrated hardcover — NOT a Viking/Putnam trade book (this title falls outside the usual mainstream-publisher pattern; it is a small-press illustrated novella that grew out of an aborted 1979 Wrightson/Zavisa werewolf-CALENDAR project — King's monthly 500-word vignettes outgrew the calendar format). CONFIRMED by official stephenking.com: within the 1983 Land of Enchantment publication there are FOUR co-issued states, all dated 1983: (1) Presentation/"Artist's Copies" — 8 copies, hand-written limitation notice, signed by King AND Wrightson; (2) Collector's Edition — 100 copies numbered 1-100, with dust jacket AND slipcase, with an original Berni Wrightson artwork laid in, signed by both; (3) Deluxe Edition — 250 copies numbered 101-350, with dust jacket AND slipcase, issued with a portfolio of Wrightson artwork, signed by both; (4) the unsigned TRADE hardcover — 7,500 copies, with dust jacket, no slipcase. The signed/numbered limited states (1-3) PRECEDE/outrank the 7,500-copy trade hardcover as the true-first issue and command far more money; the 7,500-copy trade hardcover is the affordable first edition most collectors mean by 'the first.' There is NO mainstream-publisher hardcover first — the 1985 Signet mass-market paperback (and the SILVER BULLET tie-in pairing the novella with King's screenplay) is later and separate. This 1983 Land of Enchantment book is the ONLY hardcover edition; no later hardcover printings are documented.

First-printing points at a glance

First-printing statementUNVERIFIED as an exact quoted line for the TRADE issue. Land of Enchantment did not use a conventional 'First Edition' + number-line convention. The decisive, photographable book tell is instead the ISBN on the copyright leaf: the unsigned 1983 trade hardcover carries ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 (= 9780960382828), independently confirmed across six-plus dealer and ISFDB-class records. The SIGNED limited states are identified by a LIMITATION PAGE stating the copy number out of the run (Deluxe '___/250' i.e. #101-350, Collector's '___/100' i.e. #1-100) with King's and Wrightson's signatures; the 8 Presentation/Artist's copies carry a HAND-WRITTEN limitation notice. The unsigned trade hardcover lacks any limitation/number statement and any signatures. Because there was only one hardcover printing and no book-club edition, ANY correctly-bound 1983 Land of Enchantment copy bearing ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 is the first (and only) hardcover edition — do NOT expect a 'First Edition' slug or a number line; the limitation page is the only intra-edition discriminator. (Exact copyright-page wording for the trade issue beyond the ISBN could not be confirmed from the sources reviewed — treat the surrounding wording as UNVERIFIED; multiple specialist dealers, e.g. Atlanta Vintage Books, list these simply as 'First Edition, First Printing' on the basis of imprint + ISBN + binding/format, not a stated point.)
Number lineN/A — no publisher number line. The 1983 Land of Enchantment hardcover (all states) carries no '1 3 5 7 9...' style number line; first/only printing. (A number line — '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9' under 'First Signet Edition April 1985' — appears only on the much later, unrelated 1985 Signet mass-market PAPERBACK, which is NOT the hardcover first.)
Gutter / printer codeN/A — Land of Enchantment is a small press; no Doubleday-style gutter/printer code applies.
First printing — copiesFirst/only 1983 Land of Enchantment printing: 7,850 total copies — 7,500 unsigned trade hardcovers + 350 signed/numbered limited (100 "Collector's," numbered 1–100, with a laid-in original Wrightson sketch; 250 "Deluxe," numbered 101–350, with a Wrightson art portfolio), all in slipcases. The trade was not reprinted by Land of Enchantment. accepted figure
First jacket priceUNVERIFIED. The widely-repeated '$8.95' figure traces to the 1985 SIGNET mass-market PAPERBACK (cover printed 'Canada $9.95 / U.S. $8.95'), NOT to the 1983 oversize trade hardcover; do not transfer it to the hardcover jacket. Multiple dealer listings of the 1983 trade hardcover (AbeBooks, perusethestacks, firstandfine, mycomicshop, camelotbooks) do not quote a printed jacket-flap price, and the exact original retail price of the trade hardcover jacket could not be confirmed across the sources reviewed. Marked UNVERIFIED rather than guessed. (UNVERIFIED — if a price is present it would be on the upper front dust-jacket flap (standard placement); but a confirmed first-printing trade-jacket price was not located across the dealer/official sources reviewed. Do not assume price-clipped = later state without inspecting the flap (there is only one hardcover printing).)
Board (panel) colorBrown. Dealers describe two binding presentations on the 1983 issue: 'brown mottled boards stamped in gilt' and 'full brown leatherette stamped in gilt' (cross-confirmed across multiple AbeBooks dealer descriptions). Oversize quarto format (~9" x 11" / ~28.5 cm), 114 pp.
Spine / center bindingBrown (same brown leatherette/mottled-boards material as the covers — a single-tone full binding, NOT quarter-bound two-tone), with GOLD GILT lettering/stamping on BOTH the front cover and the spine. Wrightson's signature is reproduced in gold on the title page. Spine is notoriously prone to sunning/fading.
Binding styleFull brown leatherette / mottled cloth-paper over boards (single-color full binding, not quarter-bound), gilt-stamped front and spine; sewn oversize quarto, 114 pp, with illustrated endpapers. The signed Collector's/Deluxe states are housed in a custom illustrated slipcase, but a slipcase is NOT a reliable trade-vs-limited tell: reputable dealers describe trade copies with a custom slipcase while King's official page lists slipcases only for the limiteds, so its presence proves nothing and its absence proves nothing — verify the numbered LIMITATION LEAF (copy number + King AND Wrightson signatures), never the slipcase. The Deluxe state was additionally accompanied by a separate Wrightson art portfolio.
Topstain / endpapersIllustrated endpapers (Wrightson art) — confirmed across multiple dealers. Topstain: UNVERIFIED. In the signed Presentation/Collector's states, King and Wrightson signed/laid-in artwork; the Collector's state carries an original Wrightson drawing laid in.

Dust jacket

Color pictorial dust jacket featuring Berni Wrightson werewolf cover art. Notorious production flaw CONFIRMED: the jacket printing process produced varying degrees of WHITE SPOTTING on many jackets; jackets also fade/sun badly, especially the spine and portions of the front panel. Jacket condition is the dominant value driver for the trade issue. (Exact back-panel layout not separately confirmed.)

Art / design: Berni (Bernie) Wrightson — cover art and all interior illustration (24 full-page glossy plates: 12 full-color + 12 black-and-white, one of each per chapter, plus chapter art and illustrated endpapers). Story by Stephen King; project conceived/published by Christopher Zavisa (Land of Enchantment), originating from a 1979 calendar proposal.

reference photohttps://www.stephenkingcollector.com/limited/cycle.htmlreference photohttps://stephenking.com/works/limited/cycle-of-the-werewolf.htmlreference photohttps://www.abebooks.com/9780960382828/Cycle-Werewolf-King-Stephen-Wrightson-0960382828/plp
Book-club edition & fakes — how to spot a wrong copyNo formal Book-of-the-Month / book-club edition of the 1983 Land of Enchantment hardcover is documented — it was a small-press print run, NOT a Doubleday/BOMC title, so the usual blind-stamp + 'Book Club Edition' flap tells do not apply here. CONFIRMED: no BCE surfaced across stephenking.com, Wikipedia, or specialist dealers. The real-world confusion is EDITION/STATE and FORMAT substitution, not a BCE: (1) sellers passing the 1985 SIGNET PAPERBACK (or the SILVER BULLET paperback tie-in reprinting the novella + screenplay) off as 'the first' — it is a later, separate, mass-market paperback (identified by 'First Signet Edition April 1985 / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9'); (2) an unsigned TRADE hardcover represented as one of the signed/numbered limited states — verify the LIMITATION PAGE with King + Wrightson signatures and the copy number, and presence of slipcase + laid-in drawing (Collector's) or portfolio (Deluxe).

Also watch for: 1) FORMAT/EDITION substitution: the 1985 Signet PAPERBACK (and the SILVER BULLET tie-in paperback pairing the novella with King's screenplay) is routinely mislisted as a 'first edition' — it is a later mass-market paperback, not the hardcover first. 2) Mis-attributed price: the '$8.95' cover price belongs to the Signet paperback, not the trade hardcover. 3) Unsigned trade copy sold as a signed limited — always confirm the printed/written LIMITATION PAGE, the King + Wrightson signatures, and the copy number; a slipcase alone settles nothing (some trade copies are slipcased, some limiteds may have lost theirs), so rely on the limitation leaf, not the case. 4) Jacket condition traps: heavy spine fading/sunning and the production WHITE-SPOTTING flaw are common; price-clipped (though no confirmed printed price exists) and married/facsimile jackets exist given the title's value and the fragile jacket. 5) Ex-library and restored copies of the trade hardcover circulate. 6) Page-count cross-check: the hardcover is 114 pp; a '127 pp' figure (Wikipedia) describes the later Signet paperback pagination, not the Land of Enchantment hardcover.

Print run & scarcity

Figures are well-established and consistent across King-bibliography sources and dealer descriptions: 7,500 unsigned trade + 350 signed/numbered limited (100 + 250). The signed limitation was printed/bound by the same publisher in the same 1983 run; the limitation page states the number. A separate companion Wrightson "artist's portfolio" was issued in 350 signed/numbered copies — easy to confuse with the book's limitation, so verify it against the actual book's limitation page. After 1983 the text went to a 1985 Signet paperback and a 2017 Gallery/S&S hardcover; those are different settings, not part of the first-printing count.

First-state points & errata

No distinct first-state vs later-state textual errata are documented for the single 1983 hardcover printing. The meaningful 'state' hierarchy is the limitation hierarchy: Presentation (8, hand-written limitation) > Collector's (100, #1-100, laid-in original Wrightson artwork, slipcased) > Deluxe (250, #101-350, with portfolio, slipcased) > Trade (7,500, unsigned, dust jacket only, no slipcase). The jacket white-spotting flaw is a production characteristic across the print run, not a state point.

Limited & signed editions

Land of Enchantment 1983 signed limited issue (350 signed/numbered + 8 presentation; copy counts CONFIRMED verbatim by official stephenking.com): Presentation/'Artist's Copies' — 8 copies, hand-written limitation notice, signed by King & Wrightson (~$2,500-$3,000); Collector's Edition — 100 copies (#1-100), with dust jacket + slipcase, original Wrightson artwork laid in, signed by both (~$2,200-$2,700); Deluxe Edition — 250 copies (#101-350), with dust jacket + slipcase, issued with a separate Wrightson art portfolio, signed by both (~$1,700-$2,100). A companion Wrightson ART PORTFOLIO was also issued with the Deluxe state. No other publisher issued a signed/traycased hardcover of this title.

Market value estimate

~$450–$900

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: NO verified realized price exists for a bare unsigned TRADE first — and both eBay figures below are ASKING prices, not sale figures. eBay item #137187722449 (seller oakbrookclothiersobc) was a genuine 1983 Land of Enchantment TRADE first, bench-blessed on two mutually corroborating tells that were legibly photographed: the copyright leaf (©1983 by The Land of Enchantment, the Christopher Zavisa / Westland, Michigan imprint, and the dual-ISBN block) and the rear jacket panel printing the TRADE ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 rather than the signed-limited 0-9603828-1-X. Our own bench records the honest caveat that the copyright leaf prints BOTH ISBNs and so cannot by itself separate trade from limited; it is the rear-panel ISBN that fixes the issue as trade and rules out a married limited jacket. That copy was recorded SOLD (quantity 1) in our 2026-07-05 liveness sweep; that listing ended 2026-06-28, a date recovered on a full-detail re-probe on 2026-08-04 and now persisted in ebay-price-probes.json (the earlier lean query had blanked the end time on every stored row, which is why we had said no date was in our record). Its LIST price was $499.83, but Best Offer was enabled and eBay logs two offers against it, and eBay never publishes an accepted-offer amount — so we cannot establish whether it closed at the ask or below it. What that copy actually fetched is unknowable from our record; $499.83 is the seller's ASK and must never be quoted as a realized price. (An earlier version of this note called it "fixed price, no best-offer accepted" and "the first clean, publicly realized hammer." Both halves were false — an artifact of a liveness query that returns no Best Offer data at all on a completed listing — and both are withdrawn. The copy and the sale are real; only the figure was never established.) As context and not as a comp: our bench graded that copy VG+ to Near Fine book / VG+ jacket (small chips and nicks at the jacket head, foxed prelims, spine and boards never photographed) and set fair value on it at $325–$425, judging the full ask rich for the grade — a middle-of-band copy, not a fine/fine benchmark. Heritage Auctions, Lot #16141 — unsigned trade hardcover first + Wrightson original werewolf sketch (signed/dated Nov '83) in brown gilt slipcase, sold Jul 21, 2019 (realized price gated behind HA login; lot value driven UP heavily by the bundled original art, so it is NOT a clean trade-book comp). Supporting dealer-grade pricing on the unsigned trade first: First and Fine (UK) — fine book / VG spine-faded jacket, sold out at a several-hundred-USD level; AbeBooks current trade-first asks $1,275 (As New, slight spine fade) to $1,899 (VG+, 3in rear-panel tear). Our $450–$900 fine/fine band is an estimate built from that dealer evidence — First and Fine's sell-through and the AbeBooks asks above — and not from observed auction or eBay results, of which we hold no realized figure at all. I have not found a single publicly published hammer figure for a bare fine/fine trade copy, so treat everything above as documented dealer/auction evidence plus one real sale of unknown price — not a verified hammer. A SECOND bench-verified trade first has now sold, and its price is equally unknowable. eBay item #327136520034 (seller cabinetofholdings), a $650 fixed-price listing, ended 2026-07-28 with eBay recording one sold — but Best Offer was enabled and three offers were logged, and eBay never publishes an accepted amount, so whether it closed at the ask or beneath it cannot be established. $650 is the ASK; it caps what the copy fetched and must never be quoted as a realized price. Nor is it a clean ceiling on the bare book: the seller advertised a slipcase, and the trade issue was published in jacket only — slipcases on trade copies are added afterwards — so we value nothing for it. We graded the copy ourselves at the bench on 2026-06-23 from its own fifteen photographs, not from the seller's claim: the Land of Enchantment / Christopher Zavisa imprint on the title and copyright leaves, and the TRADE ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 at the foot of the rear jacket panel, with no limitation page and no King or Wrightson signature in any frame — the unsigned trade issue, not a limited state and not a married limited jacket. Condition, a value matter and never an edition matter: Near Fine book / Near Fine jacket, boards bright, the jacket unfaded — better dress than the $499.83 copy above, and the first near-fine JACKET we have watched change hands on a title where the jacket carries the money — though it shows the run's characteristic white-spotting and was photographed sleeved in mylar, which can hide fine rubbing or a closed tear. All it establishes is that such a copy found a buyer at or under $650, which sits below the midpoint of our $450–900 band and moves neither end of it. Both eBay sales we have tracked here, a month apart, closed with Best Offer enabled and offers logged, so neither yields a realized figure — that is how the venue works, not a property of this title.

No confirmed sale found — the range below is a soft estimate from dealer listings, not a realized figure: $450–$900 (genuine unsigned TRADE first, fine/fine, unclipped, spine not faded). Signed limited (#1–350) is a separate, much higher tier: ~$2,000–$5,000+.

Book-club edition (the trap): No true BOMC/BCE of the 1983 Land of Enchantment edition exists — the common TRAP here is different: the 1985 Signet/NAL mass-market paperback ($5–$25) and the 2017 Gallery/S&S hardcover reissue ($10–$20) are routinely mislisted as "1983 first editions." Those, plus jacketless or ex-library 1983 copies, are the worthless-to-cheap impostors. A jacketless 1983 trade first runs roughly $40–$120. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.

Condition-sensitive on the dust jacket above all: the Land of Enchantment jacket fades badly on the spine (color loss to the red/spine is near-universal), so a truly unfaded, unclipped, bright jacket is what separates a $450–$900 copy from a $150–$300 one. Price-clipping or a married/facsimile jacket guts value. Signed/inscribed premium is large but lives in a DIFFERENT tier — the signed LIMITED (numbered 1–350, slipcased) is a different book, not a "signed trade first"; secondary in-jacket signatures by Wrightson alone add modestly. THE SINGLE BIGGEST THING for this title: confirm the PUBLISHER and ISSUE, not a Doubleday gutter code. There is no Doubleday point here — this was never a Doubleday book. The true first is "The Land of Enchantment, 1983," oversize (~9x11) brown leatherette boards with gilt, full Wrightson color plates. If the spine/copyright says Signet/NAL (1985) or Gallery/Simon & Schuster (2017), it is NOT the first. Then determine whether it is the unsigned trade (no limitation/number, value band above) or a numbered signed limited 1–350 (slipcase + portfolio or laid-in original art — far more valuable).

Value sources:

Sources

Verification notes: VERIFY pass (independent re-confirmation): (a) Edition structure CROSS-CONFIRMED VERBATIM by the official stephenking.com limited-works page (independent fetch: Collector's 100 #1-100 w/ original artwork laid-in + slipcase; Deluxe 250 #101-350 w/ portfolio + slipcase; Presentation 8 hand-written limitation; Trade 7,500 unsigned) — matches the draft exactly; corroborated by Wikipedia, mycomicshop, and AbeBooks dealers. NEW independent sources added beyond the draft list: official stephenking.com NOVEL page, perusethestacks dealer, mycomicshop, camelotbooks, atlantavintagebooks ('First Edition, First Printing' listing), and Kev's Stephen King House (charnelhouse.tripod). (b) Binding cross-confirmed across AbeBooks dealer descriptions: 'brown mottled boards stamped in gilt' AND 'full brown leatherette stamped in gilt,' gilt front+spine, ~9x11 / 28.5cm quarto, 114 pp, illustrated endpapers. (c) Jacket white-spotting production flaw + spine sunning INDEPENDENTLY CONFIRMED (camelotbooks + multiple dealers). (d) ISBN 0-9603828-2-8 / 978-0-9603828-2-8 consistent across Biblio, AbeBooks, mycomicshop, Wikipedia. (e) PRICE: deliberately NOT asserted for the hardcover — the $8.95 figure is sourced to the 1985 Signet paperback; trade-hardcover jacket price left UNVERIFIED per no-guess rule (no dealer quotes a printed flap price). (f) Number line confirmed ABSENT on hardcover; the '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9' line under 'First Signet Edition April 1985' belongs to the 1985 Signet paperback only. (g) No BCE: confirmed absent across all sources reviewed (small-press, not Doubleday/BOMC). DISCREPANCIES recorded: (1) PAGE COUNT — Wikipedia states 127 pp, but dealer/official/mycomicshop consensus for the Land of Enchantment HARDCOVER is 114 pp; the 127-pp figure corresponds to the later Signet paperback. Preferred 114 pp per the dealer/catalog consensus and flagged. (2) Wikipedia gives publication month as November 1983 (Biblio lists 'January 1984' as a catalog date) — year 1983 stands per the limitation/official sources. Draft's UNVERIFIED flags on copyright wording and hardcover jacket price are CORRECT and retained.

confidence: Medium. HIGH confidence on: true-first identity (1983 Land of Enchantment hardcover is the only hardcover and the true first; limited states precede/outrank the trade), the four edition states and their sizes/numbering (8 / 100 [#1-100] / 250 [#101-350] / 7,500), CROSS-CONFIRMED VERBATIM by official stephenking.com plus stephenkingcollector.com and multiple dealers; Wrightson illustration/binding (brown leatherette-or-mottled boards, gilt front+spine, illustrated endpapers, 114 pp, ~9x11), the jacket white-spotting production flaw + spine sunning, the absence of a number line, and the absence of any book-club edition. LOW/UNVERIFIED on: exact copyright-page wording for the trade issue, and the exact original trade-hardcover JACKET PRICE (the repeated $8.95 is the 1985 Signet paperback, not the hardcover) — both flagged UNVERIFIED rather than guessed, lowering overall confidence.
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