.

I'm not sure it was first edition, but I had a copy in 1984 or thereabouts. (I believe first edition was published in 1977.) I believe my first copy had a silver cover.

I found it and started using it half way through a year-long Japanese course at Keio Daigaku, in which I had gotten mediocre grades during the first semester. After doing some psycho study during the break with Heisig, I jumped three or four grades -- my teachers thought something had happened to me.

A couple of years after returning, I lost the book, which by then was completely dog-eared and I could not find another copy for years. (I couldn't remember Heisig's name or enough about the book to locate it -- this was before the internet became what it is today.)

Anyways, lots of fond memories.

Best,
Eric

If I'm remembering correctly, I think some of those early editions had weird binding issues that caused them to disintegrate. There actually may not be a lot left. That may have been the 2nd or 3rd printing, though, since I remember posts about it here along with instructions on how to manually rebind your book.

I saw a first-edition in the Waseda library. It was in rather bad shape. What I remember about it is that it was written all in fixed-point font and used "kanjis" as the plural of kanji, but other than that it seemed very similar to current RTK.

The one which fell apart easily was the 5th edition. I still have the 3rd edition, and it's still more or less in the same condition I got it in.