first editions of books

[mycatis]

Hi does anyone know what order the number sequences go in for each printing series of a book?  I think a 1st edition has: 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 ( on the first page) but how would it go after that? cheers

[Golem]

A similar question was recently asked here;

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Arts-and-Literature/Question105916.html

you may find some of those answers helpful.

[Octavius]

Different publishers have different ways of noting first editions. HarperCollins do it with a string of numbers 135798642. Looked at another way you can read it left (1) right (2) left (3) right (4) and so on. To show a different edition has been printed, they remove one of the numbers in sequence.

So a 1st edition will have those numbers as you have said, a 2nd edition will have the 1 removed, and so on.