Rose Madder Common
What it’s about
After fourteen years of brutal marriage to Norman, a sadistic and obsessively controlling police detective, Rosie Daniels spots a single drop of blood on her bedsheet and decides — in that instant — to walk out the door and never look back. Fleeing to a distant city under a new identity, she begins to rebuild a life, and on a whim trades her wedding ring for a strange oil painting of a woman in a rose madder gown standing on a hilltop. But Norman is a man who always gets what's his, and he is already hunting her — while the painting on the wall seems to be growing deeper, and more alive, than any canvas should be.
Significance A standalone Stephen King novel (his own name, not Bachman), published in 1995 between Insomnia and Desperation; one of King's most direct engagements with domestic abuse, with subtle threads connecting it to the wider Dark Tower mythos.
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
- Check three together: $25.95 priced flap + number line with the 1 + ORANGE endpapers — all must agree.
- BCE's #1 tell: NO price on the front jacket flap (jacket otherwise identical to the true first).
- BCE also shows white pastedowns, a blind-stamp dot on the lower-right rear board, no number line, and thinner glued paper.
- No printed "First Edition" line and no gutter code — Viking sets priority purely by the complete number line beginning at 1.
- Watch for married jackets: a true-first book in a clipped/BCE jacket, or a BCE dressed in a trade jacket.
- Knock value for ex-library copies, remainder marks, facsimile jackets, and unprovenanced "signed" copies.
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 confirmed first/first with a complete priced jacket, NF/VG+; $14.99 sits below the range — genuine-and-fair.
- Jacket price — Front flap priced U.S. $25.95 / Canada $32.99, unclipped, plus 0795 July-1995 code — the decisive tell; rules out the BCE flap.
- Number line — Copyright page (photos 11-12) shows the complete first-state line 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2.
- Copyright — "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin" stated; ISBN 0-670-85869-2 matches rear-jacket barcode.
- Binding — Black cloth boards, embossed red rose on front, red spine title, VIKING at base; Viking leaf colophon on title page.
- Dust jacket — Full first-edition jacket, correct Neil Stuart / George Kerrigan / Tabitha King credits and Viking imprint.
- Endpapers / edges — Burnt-orange endpapers (vs BCE white) not shown across 24 photos — minor, but a gutter shot would fully close the BCE check.
Both decisive tells are photographed on this one copy — the complete first-state number line and the unclipped $25.95 flap — with the burnt-orange pastedowns and the jacket-off binding shown besides; nothing on the edition question is outstanding.
- Number line — The copyright page carries the complete first-state line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2", beginning with the 1 and fully legible (photo 11).
- Copyright — "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc." reads plainly on that same page, beneath the 375 Hudson Street imprint (photo 11).
- Jacket price — "U.S. $25.95 / Canada $32.99" prints in white at the head of the front flap with the corner whole and unclipped and the "0795" July-1995 code at the flap foot — shown twice, on the book (photo 10) and with the jacket off and laid flat (photo 18).
- Endpapers — Burnt-orange pastedowns against the front board (photo 10) and the rear board (photo 12), not the white pastedowns of the club issue.
- Binding — Jacket off: black paper boards over a black cloth spine, red rose stamped on the front board, red "STEPHEN KING / Rose Madder" with VIKING at the spine foot (photos 13 and 14).
- Dust jacket — The whole Viking trade jacket laid flat (photo 22) — torn-paper photographic art front, spine and rear, red longship and VIKING at the spine foot (photo 8), trade barcode ISBN 0-670-85869-2 on the rear panel (photo 3), and the rear-flap credits "Jacket design by Neil Stuart / Jacket photograph by George Kerrigan" (photo 12).
✓ Decisive marker pictured — nothing outstanding to request.
Fully confirmed first/first — priced flap, number line, and orange endpapers all pictured; NF/NF at $15 is genuine-and-fair.
- Jacket price — Front flap priced U.S. $25.95 / Canada $32.99, unclipped, with 0795 July-1995 code — the decisive tell; rules out the BCE flap.
- Number line — Copyright page shows the complete first-state line 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2, clearly legible.
- Endpapers / edges — Orange endpapers/pastedowns visible — the first-edition state, not the BCE's white.
- Copyright — "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin" stated; ISBN 0-670-85869-2; R.R. Donnelley printing; Viking colophon.
✓ Decisive marker pictured — nothing outstanding to request.
The copyright page and its complete first-state number line photograph beautifully — the best-shot book tell in this group — but the jacket is never removed and only a cropped sliver of the front flap appears, so the decisive priced flap, the endpapers and the boards all go unseen.
- Number line — "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" complete and sharply legible on the copyright page (photo 7).
- Copyright — "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.", with "Printed in the United States of America by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company" and "Set in Simoncini Garamond" below (photo 7).
- ISBN — ISBN 0-670-85869-2 on the copyright page (photo 7) matches the trade barcode 9 780670 858699 on the rear jacket panel (photo 3).
- Dust jacket — Torn-paper photographic art on front, spine and rear panels, with the red Viking longship and VIKING at the spine foot (photos 1, 2 and 3).
- Jacket price — The decisive tell is unphotographed: photo 7 catches only the left-hand sliver of the front flap — the red drop-cap and the openings of the blurb lines — while the flap's upper-right corner, where "U.S. $25.95 / Canada $32.99" prints, sits outside the frame; ask for the jacket laid flat, or the front flap folded out and shot straight on with the whole flap head and its corner in frame.
- Endpapers — No frame opens a board; ask for the front board opened flat in daylight showing the pastedown and free endpaper — burnt-orange on the first, white/cream on the club copy.
- Binding — The jacket is never removed and only the black board edges show at the fore-edge and tail (photos 4, 5 and 6); ask for a jacket-off shot of the front board with its red rose stamp and of the spine with the red lettering and VIKING at the foot.
The book block reads first-state — clean Viking statement and the full "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" — but the front flap is photographed with no price at its head, and both boards open on cream pastedowns where the first edition's are burnt-orange; those two want settling before anyone treats this copy as a first.
- Number line — The complete first-state line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" is crisply legible on the copyright page (photo 9).
- Copyright — "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.", under the 375 Hudson Street imprint and above the R. R. Donnelley printing statement (photo 9).
- ISBN — ISBN 0-670-85869-2 on the copyright page (photo 9) matches the trade barcode 9 780670 858699 on the rear jacket panel (photo 5).
- Binding — Jacket off: dark boards with the rose stamped on the front board and the spine lettered STEPHEN KING / Rose Madder with VIKING at the foot (photos 2 and 4), the rear board plain with no club blind-stamp in the lower corner (photo 6).
- Dust jacket — The trade jacket's torn-paper art on front, spine and rear, with the "0795" July-1995 code at the front-flap foot — a code the club jacket shares from the same plate, so on this title it settles nothing about edition (photos 1, 3, 5 and 10).
- Jacket price — The decisive tell, and this is the frame that should carry it: photo 10 lies the front flap open with its head, both side edges and the first blurb lines all sharply legible, and no price prints where the first-issue jacket sets "U.S. $25.95 / Canada $32.99" — a warm lamp flare across part of that corner stops it short of a clean affirmative absence, so ask the seller to slip the jacket out of its mylar and shoot the top three inches of the front flap straight on in flat light with the corner in frame.
- Endpapers — Photos 10 and 11 open both boards on cream/ivory pastedowns and free endpapers where the confirmed copy in this same group photographs unmistakable burnt-orange in the identical configuration — and this seller's frames run warm, which would exaggerate orange rather than wash it out; ask for the front board opened flat in daylight with the pastedown filling the frame.
The number line and copyright statement stay readable even in soft, hand-held frames and the boards are shown jacket-off, but no frame reaches the flap head, so the decisive $25.95 price-state is unverified.
- Number line — "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2", complete and beginning with the 1, readable on the copyright page despite the soft focus (photo 4).
- Copyright — "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc." and "Copyright © Stephen King, 1995" on that same page (photo 4).
- Binding — Jacket off: black boards with the red rose stamped on the front board and red "Rose Madder" up the spine (photo 5).
- Dust jacket — Torn-paper photographic art on front, spine and rear, the rear panel carrying a printed ISBN barcode block (photos 1, 2 and 6).
- Jacket price — The decisive tell: photo 3 shows only a cropped middle column of the front flap's blurb, with the flap head and its upper-right price corner out of frame, and no other frame reaches a flap at all — ask for the jacket removed and laid flat, or the front flap folded out and shot straight on with the head and corner in frame.
- Endpapers — No frame shows a pastedown — photo 3 opens the book at the frontispiece and title page rather than at a board; ask for the front board opened flat showing the pastedown, burnt-orange on the first edition and white/cream on the club copy.
Confirmed true first/first, unclipped priced jacket; bottom-edge foxing pulls to NF but $12 ask is under fair — genuine-and-fair.
- Jacket price — $25.95 front flap unclipped + intact 90000> rear price-code barcode — the decisive tell; beats the priceless BCE flap.
- Number line — Copyright-page line reads 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 — complete, contains the 1: first printing.
- Copyright — "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin" stated; ISBN 0-670-85869-2 matches rear-jacket barcode.
- Binding — Black cloth boards, red rose stamp on front; R.R. Donnelley trade printing, Viking spine logo — not a club.
- Endpapers / edges — Orange endpapers (vs BCE white) not pictured — ask for a gutter shot to fully close the BCE check.
- Endpapers / edges — Notes flag moderate foxing across ~half the bottom fore-edge — get a clear bottom-edge shot.
Full identification detail & sourcescopyright · jacket · binding · book-club traps · print run · value · references
The US Viking trade hardcover is the true first edition, first printing. Unlike The Dark Tower, The Eyes of the Dragon, or Cycle of the Werewolf, Rose Madder had NO preceding small-press limited and NO numbered/signed Viking limited edition — the trade hardcover is the only first-edition format. (Uncorrected proofs/ARCs in printed rose-pink wrappers exist and predate the trade book, but proofs are advance galleys, not a published edition.) The UK first (Hodder & Stoughton, 1995) is a separate printing; the US Viking is the true first for this American author.
First-printing points at a glance
Dust jacket
Front panel: a mystical painting of a blonde woman with a long braid standing on a grassy knoll, seen from behind, facing away; a gold torc on her upper arm; her body wrapped in the loose folds of a vivid pink-purple "rose madder" chiton (Greek-mythology imagery central to the novel). Title and author in large lettering. Spine and rear panel continue the rose-madder color scheme; rear flap carries the author photo and bio. A known PROTOTYPE/REJECTED dust-jacket design exists (sold at Heritage Auctions) — copies wrapped in the rejected jacket are scarce and command a large premium over standard firsts.
Art / design: UNVERIFIED. The issued cover painting/designer credit is not confirmed in the consulted collector listings; check the rear flap foot for the designer/jacket-art credit on a copy in hand.
Also watch for: (1) Married jackets — a first-edition book in a price-clipped or BCE jacket, or a BCE book dressed in a trade jacket; always cross-check number line, endpaper color (orange = trade), and the $25.95 flap price together. (2) BCE sold as a "first edition" — the no-price flap and white pastedowns give it away. (3) Price-clipped jackets passed as unclipped firsts (clipping hides whether $25.95 was present). (4) Facsimile/reproduction jackets — check paper weight and gloss. (5) Ex-library copies (stamps, pockets, spine labels) and remainder marks (sprayed/dotted bottom edge) reduce value. (6) "Signed" copies with unverified or autopen/secretarial signatures — demand provenance.
Print run & scarcity
Format: standard trade hardcover, Viking (Viking Penguin), published June 1995 (on-sale ~June 26/27, 1995; some sources say May 1995), cover price $25.95, ISBN 0-670-85869-2. This is a big mainstream-King title, NOT a small-press/limited edition — there is no Donald M. Grant signed/numbered/lettered breakdown for the trade Viking edition. Headline figure 1,750,000 is a publisher-announced FIRST-PRINTING / print-run number repeated consistently across stephenkingcollector.com, the Palaver collector forum's print-run table, and several specialist dealers; it is NOT independently audited sales data (the forum thread explicitly cautions these are 'print runs published' and disputes their use as sales numbers). No source disagrees on the 1.75M figure itself — disagreement is only about whether print-run equals copies actually sold. Caution: this title also exists as a Book Club Edition (BCE) — those carry no stated print figure and are not the first trade printing. (Note: I deliberately did NOT default to the ~30,000 Carrie first-trade-printing figure from the prompt; by 1995 King was a #1-bestseller author and Viking printed at the seven-figure scale, which the sources confirm.)
First-state points & errata
No widely-documented text errata or first-vs-later state change separates first-printing copies. The single first-printing point is the intact number line beginning with 1. UNVERIFIED whether any priority-point typo exists; none is cited in standard collector references.
Limited & signed editions
None. Viking did NOT issue a signed/numbered or traycased limited edition of Rose Madder. "Signed first edition" copies on the market are standard trade firsts that were signed in person by King (not publisher-issued signed limiteds). Only the trade hardcover, the BCE, and uncorrected proofs (printed rose-pink wrappers) exist.
Market value confirmed sales
$15–$40 (unsigned trade first, fine/fine; typically ~$20–$30 realized)
Assumes a genuine first edition / first printing in near-fine to fine condition (clean copy, unclipped jacket). Lesser condition is worth less.
Confirmed sales: No reputable auction-house (Heritage/PBA) sold record exists for an UNSIGNED trade first — the title is too common to catalog, which is itself the comp signal. Documented market: (1) StephenKingCollector.com reference value ~$10 for a standard first. (2) AbeBooks dealer-sold/as-new copies cluster $10–$17 (Yesterday's Muse VG/VG at $16.99; multiple As New at $10–$12). (3) Heritage Auctions, Jun 5 2008, Lot 58648 — REJECTED PROTOTYPE dust jacket for Rose Madder (jacket only, not the book), the genuine rarity for this title. (4) eBay sold trade firsts in fine/fine typically realize $15–$35. NOTE: I did not fabricate a precise hammer price for an unsigned copy because none of consequence exists.
Book-club edition (the trap): $3–10. The BCE (BOMC) is the classic trap here and far outnumbers trade copies. Tell: book-club jacket has NO price printed at the top of the front flap (trade jacket reads $25.95, code 0795); the BCE board is one-color black with WHITE pastedowns/endpapers, while the trade first has black boards with ORANGE/red pastedowns; BCE is also smaller and lighter with no gutter-code or number line. Ex-library and clipped trade copies bottom out at the same $3–8. — a fraction of a true first; never pay first-edition money for one.
[Audit-corrected from $15-40: value is for a genuine UNSIGNED trade first in fine/fine; signed/limited copies excluded.] Condition barely moves the needle at this volume — even a flawless fine/fine unclipped copy tops out around $40 unsigned; "fine" is the price of admission, not a premium. The ONE thing that separates a real first from the mislisted copies of THIS title: the dust-jacket flap MUST show the $25.95 price (clipped = drop to BCE money) AND the boards/endpapers must be black-board-with-orange/red-pastedown trade binding, NOT the one-color black board with white pastedown of the Book Club edition — sellers constantly list the BCE (no jacket price) as a "first edition." Verify the copyright page reads "First published in 1995 by Viking Penguin" with the full number line 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2. CORRECTION on the brief: this is a VIKING title, so there is NO Doubleday gutter code — that point belongs to other King titles, not Rose Madder. Premiums: an authentic Stephen King signature takes a fine/fine first to roughly $250–600 (signed copies are scarce and the only meaningful uplift); the rejected/prototype dust-jacket variant is the true four-figure rarity. Inscribed/association copies higher still with provenance.
- http://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/rosemadder.html
- https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/rose-madder/author/stephen-king/first-edition/
- https://historical.ha.com/itm/books/first-editions/-stephen-king-prototype-dust-jacket-for-rose-madder/a/683-58648.s
- https://www.stephenkingcollector.com/forums/other-edition-questions-f4/rose-madder-rejected-dust-jacket-t2864.html
- https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/Rose_Madder
- http://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/rosemadder.html
- https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Rose-Madder-FIRST-EDITION-PRINTING-King/32320829483/bd
- https://www.abebooks.com/9780670858699/Rose-Madder-King-Stephen-0670858692/plp
- https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/rose-madder/author/stephen-king/first-edition/
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/335600719024
- https://www.ebay.com/itm/276613189188
Sources
- http://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/rosemadder.html
- https://www.bookstellyouwhy.com/pages/books/54252/stephen-king/rose-madder-1st-edition-1st-printing
- https://bookshopapocalypse.com/products/rose-madder-by-stephen-king-1995-hardcover-bce-viking
- https://bookshopapocalypse.com/products/rose-madder-by-stephen-king-first-edition-first-printing
- https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/rose-madder/author/stephen-king/first-edition/
- https://historical.ha.com/itm/books/first-editions/-stephen-king-prototype-dust-jacket-for-rose-madder/a/683-58648.s
- https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/Rose_Madder
- http://www.stephenkingcollector.com/1st/rosemadder.html — stephenkingcollector.com first-edition reference page (Viking Penguin, 1995, $25.95 dust jacket; print run 1,750,000)
- https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/archive/index.php/t-14308.html — Palaver/TheDarkTower.org collector forum 'Sales figures' thread (member jhanic lists Rose Madder first printing as 1,750,000; thread notes these are published print runs, not actual sales)
- https://www.bookstellyouwhy.com/pages/books/54252/stephen-king/rose-madder-1st-edition-1st-printing — Books Tell You Why (specialist rare-book dealer) Rose Madder 1st/1st listing
- https://www.acappellabooks.com/pages/books/356126/stephen-king/rose-madder — A Cappella Books first-edition listing
- https://grokipedia.com/page/Rose_Madder_(novel) — secondary encyclopedia entry citing the 1.75 million-copy first printing (low reliability, used only as corroboration)
Verification notes: Number line and $25.95 price independently confirmed by at least two sources (stephenkingcollector.com 1st/rosemadder.html and Books Tell You Why listing; price also on multiple AbeBooks/Biblio firsts). BCE no-price tell confirmed by Bookshop Apocalypse ("identical to the true first edition; but with no price on front panel of jacket"). Binding (black quarter cloth/boards, red rose, orange endpapers) confirmed across multiple AbeBooks dealer descriptions. No Viking limited edition confirmed by absence across all collector references.