First Edition Points and Criteria for The Underground Railroad

Year Published: 2016
Author Last Name: Whitehead
Author First Name: Colson
Publisher: Doubleday
Original Price: $26.95
Pages: 306

The U.S. first edition was published by Doubleday. First Edition is stated below full number line 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2. Boards are black with black lettering on a white cloth spine. Back of the Dust jacket has a bar code area centered on the bottom with ISBN 978-0-385-54236-4 above the larger bar code. The back of the dust jacket also features seven blurbs of praise for the Writing of Colson Whitehead by John Updike, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, The Miami Herald, People, The Washington Post, and USA Today. An unspecified amount of first editions have a signed tipped-in page preceding the title page.

There does not appear to be a separate Oprah's Book Club edition with a separate ISBN which had usually been the case with previous Oprah selections. Rather, it seems like Oprah's Book Club stickers were simply applied to the dust jacket fronts of some regular first edition books, and some of these Oprah sticker dust jackets also have a second sticker on the back that covers the printed bar codes and replaces the original ISBN 978-0-385-54236-4 with ISBN 978-0-385-54231-9.

The Underground Railroad won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award. This book is also an Oprah's Book Club selection.


Picture of the 2016 first edition dust jacket for The Underground Railroad.


Picture of the first edition copyright page for The Underground Railroad.


Picture of dust jacket where original $26.95 price is found for The Underground Railroad.


Picture of the back dust jacket for the first edition of The Underground Railroad.


Picture of the first edition Doubleday boards for The Underground Railroad.


Picture of the back dust jacket flap for the first edition of The Underground Railroad.


Picture of the first edition title page for The Underground Railroad.


An unspecified amount of The Underground Railroad first editions have a signed tipped-in page preceding the title page.


Oprah's Book Club stickers were applied to the dust jacket fronts of some regular first edition books.


Some of the dust jackets with Oprah stickers on the front also have a second sticker on the back that covers the printed bar codes and replaces the original ISBN 978-0-385-54236-4 with ISBN 978-0-385-54231-9.