What Actually Makes The Price Of Fear Worth Your Time
Vincent Price didn't write the stories in that anthology. He edited them and wrote the introductions for a total of fifteen tales spanning from H.P. Lovecraft to John D. MacDonald. The book came out in 1960 as Ballantine's fifteenth numbered paperback. For anyone digging through old book collections or trying to identify first editions, the details matter more than people realize. I spent about three years tracking down different printings and learning what to look for. The common mistake people make is assuming any copy with Price's name on it carries the same value. It doesn't. The differences between printings are subtle but significant, and they show up in very specific places on the binding.
The Price Of Fear Vincent Price editions explained
The first edition, first printing has a specific cover design with Price's portrait rendered in a particular orange-red tone. The interior is 256 pages with the ISBN you'd expect for a 1960 mass market paperback - though ISBNs as we know them didn't exist yet, so look for the Ballantine number instead. That number is 15. Later printings sometimes carry additional notation on the title page or the back flap that shifts the value considerably. Here's the part most people miss: the Ballantine "fifteenth" numbering on the spine isn't just decorative. It indicates the book's place in their early catalogue sequence, and later reprints sometimes drop or alter that number. If you're holding a copy with the number 15 cleanly printed on the spine and no additional printing information on the copyright page beyond "First Printing," you're looking at a legitimate first edition. Anything with a second printing notation or a later date stamped on the interior title page is worth roughly a third of what a first edition goes for on the secondary market. I ran into this exact problem last year when a seller on a used book forum listed a copy as a first edition. The photos looked right at first glance. But when I asked for a close-up of the copyright page, the date line showed "Second Printing" in small type right below the standard Ballantine imprint. The seller had no idea. These things are easy to overlook because the variation in physical appearance between the first and second printings is minimal. The paper stock feels the same. The cover art doesn't change between those early print runs.
Another thing to check is the flap text. First edition flaps often carry introductory copy that references Price by name in the promotional blurb. Later printings sometimes have updated flap text that reads differently or omits certain details. I keep a reference sheet of known first edition flap wording and cross-check every listing against it now. It takes about two minutes per copy and has saved me from buying at least four misidentified editions. There's also the matter of the stories themselves. The anthology includes works by Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, and Frederick Forsyth among others. Some collectors focus on which stories are included rather than the edition itself. The original table of contents differs slightly from later collections that reprinted some of the same authors under different titles. If you're building a Price collection specifically, the 1960 Ballantine edition remains the primary reference point for what Price himself chose to champion in horror fiction at that time. The book is still in print in various forms. Modern reprints exist, and you can find digital versions through major retailers. But if you want the actual first edition from 1960, expect to pay anywhere from forty to one hundred twenty dollars depending on condition. Copies in poor shape with cracked spines and foxing on the pages will be at the lower end. Near-fine examples with intact flaps sit at the higher end. There's no realistic way to get one for under thirty dollars unless you find it at a thrift store or estate sale, which does happen occasionally if you know where to look.
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