What is a false statement of edition (fausse mention)?

A false edition statement reflects a commercial strategy employed by French publishers, consisting in dividing the print run of the first edition into several fictitious tranches and adding to the wrapper and/or the title page a statement of ‘second’, ‘third’, ‘fourth’ edition, etc., for example every 500 copies.

Two distinct types of false statements may be encountered: the false edition statement and the false ‘thousand’ statement. The latter purports to indicate a number of printings, each ‘thousand’ in practice corresponding to 400 or 500 copies (rarely 1,000). While a ‘thousand’ statement can be genuine, it is then restricted to a small number of such ‘thousands’, whereas a false statement may extend to several hundred thousand.

The false edition statement is easier to establish, as a true new edition will bear a different colophon at the end of the volume. In cases of false statements, the colophon remains identical, allowing publishers, once the first copies had been sold, to suggest that the book’s success had already warranted a new edition. These statements could be wholly fanciful, and first editions are sometimes found bearing designations such as ‘52nd edition’.

However, there always exists a number of copies bearing no such fanciful statement, and, in the absence of deluxe copies, these are more sought after and more highly valued than copies carrying any such statement, even when fictitious. One final point should be noted: a certain number of copies were generally reserved for the author, so that he might present them as gifts. Most often, these were review copies, marked ‘SP’, but copies bearing edition statements were also sometimes used by authors for presentation inscriptions.