Your introduction to D&D: what order of books?

[TerraDave]

Have we done a poll on "what you started with" lately?

OK:

prologue:
*seeing the monster manual after not at all really playing D&D
*hearing about it in the college town I lived in

first wave:
*moldvoy basic with B2

It would be years before I would have a truly "good" game, but that set got me so excited.

second wave:
*AD&D core (PHB, MM, DMG) all at once
*Moldvoy expert set with Isle of Dread

Advanced quickly trumped basic...though it shouldn't have.

Third wave:
*Village of Hommlet
*Dragon 76 and beyond
*Best of Dragon 1&2.
*Deities and Demigods
*Fiend Folio

And from there, bunches of stuff.

I think the early stages just got me excited and introduced my to the basics. The latter bit really formed in my mind "this is how the game works". This has held even as I have moved through editions and learned a bit about how the game really works.

 

[Festivus]

I think I had the boxed set from the first or second printing... the rulebook inside looked like this:

but the box lid was full color, same picture. I can't recall if there was a module, I bet it was B1 In Search of the Unknown.

After that, it was the AD&D Players Handbook, DMG and Monster Manual for years and years... till 3.5 edition when I switched.