# Is "18 Poems" by Dylan Thomas a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of 18 Poems by Dylan Thomas (The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, London, 1934) is identified by: London: The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, published December 1934 (18 December 1934) — Thomas's first book, issued a month after his twentieth birthday, sponsored by the Sunday Referee after he won its "Poet's Corner" prize in April 1934, with the Referee and David Archer's Parton Bookshop sharing the printing costs. UK only, and the census claim is correct: The Sunday Referee / Parton Bookshop, London, 1934 is the true first and Thomas's debut.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- London: The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, published December 1934 (18 December 1934) — Thomas's first book, issued a month after his twentieth birthday, sponsored by the Sunday Referee after he won its "Poet's Corner" prize in April 1934, with the Referee and David Archer's Parton Bookshop sharing the printing costs
- 500 sets of sheets were printed but only 250 were bound up and issued in 1934 as the first issue
- First-issue points, all three of which must be present: a flat (unrounded) spine; untrimmed fore-edges; and NO tipped-in advertisement leaf facing the title page (between half-title and title)
- Bound in black cloth boards, lettered in gilt on the spine
- Second issue: the remaining 250 sets of the same sheets were not bound until February 1936 and are identified by a rounded spine, trimmed fore-edges, and the presence of the tipped-in Parton advertisement leaf
- Both issues are the same sheets of the same first edition — the distinction is entirely in the binding and the inserted leaf, not the text
- Publisher imprint reads The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Dylan Thomas |
| Publisher | The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, London |
| Year | 1934 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | London: The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, published December 1934 (18 December 1934) — Thomas's first book, issued a month after… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
London: The Sunday Referee and The Parton Bookshop, published December 1934 (18 December 1934) — Thomas's first book, issued a month after his twentieth birthday, sponsored by the Sunday Referee after he won its "Poet's Corner" prize in April 1934, with the Referee and David Archer's Parton Bookshop sharing the printing costs. 500 sets of sheets were printed but only 250 were bound up and issued in 1934 as the first issue. First-issue points, all three of which must be present: a flat (unrounded) spine; untrimmed fore-edges; and NO tipped-in advertisement leaf facing the title page (between half-title and title). Bound in black cloth boards, lettered in gilt on the spine. Second issue: the remaining 250 sets of the same sheets were not bound until February 1936 and are identified by a rounded spine, trimmed fore-edges, and the presence of the tipped-in Parton advertisement leaf. Both issues are the same sheets of the same first edition — the distinction is entirely in the binding and the inserted leaf, not the text.

## Is this the true first?
UK only, and the census claim is correct: The Sunday Referee / Parton Bookshop, London, 1934 is the true first and Thomas's debut. No American edition of 18 Poems is recorded, and there is no competing British edition or original-language question, so US collectors pursue the London first issue. Precedence operates within the edition rather than between countries: the December 1934 first issue (flat spine, untrimmed fore-edge, no advertisement leaf) has precedence over the February 1936 second issue of the same sheets.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition. The documented later-issue tell is the February 1936 second issue of the original sheets — rounded spine, trimmed fore-edges, and the tipped-in Parton Bookshop advertisement leaf facing the title. Because both issues carry the 1934 sheets and the 1934 title page, the title-page date cannot distinguish them; only the spine shape, the fore-edge and the advertisement leaf do. This is the single most common misdescription of the book.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *18 Poems* by Dylan Thomas a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/18-poems
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.