# Is "After Dark, My Sweet" by Jim Thompson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson (Popular Library, 1955) is identified by: A paperback original, first published as Popular Library #716 in December 1955; the catalogue number appears on the front cover, and the book is a 16mo mass-market paperback collected only in its original wrappers. The census claim is correct: the US Popular Library paperback original of 1955 is the true first, and no UK or foreign-language edition precedes or is simultaneous with it.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- A paperback original, first published as Popular Library #716 in December 1955; the catalogue number appears on the front cover, and the book is a 16mo mass-market paperback collected only in its original wrappers
- Cover art is reported as by Ray Johnson
- Because the book was never issued in a contemporaneous hardcover, the 1955 Popular Library wraps are the first appearance in book form and the only first edition — there is no hardcover state to hunt, and any hardcover of this title is a later reissue
- Identification therefore rests on the imprint and number: Popular Library 716, 1955, in wraps, with no later-printing statement on the copyright page; a different Popular Library number or a stated later printing rules the copy out
- Condition, not points, is the practical constraint on this title: cover rubbing, spine creasing, and grease-pencil pricing to the front cover are endemic
- Publisher imprint reads Popular Library
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jim Thompson |
| Publisher | Popular Library |
| Year | 1955 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | A paperback original, first published as Popular Library #716 in December 1955; the catalogue number appears on the front cover, and the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
A paperback original, first published as Popular Library #716 in December 1955; the catalogue number appears on the front cover, and the book is a 16mo mass-market paperback collected only in its original wrappers. Cover art is reported as by Ray Johnson. Because the book was never issued in a contemporaneous hardcover, the 1955 Popular Library wraps are the first appearance in book form and the only first edition — there is no hardcover state to hunt, and any hardcover of this title is a later reissue. Identification therefore rests on the imprint and number: Popular Library 716, 1955, in wraps, with no later-printing statement on the copyright page; a different Popular Library number or a stated later printing rules the copy out. Condition, not points, is the practical constraint on this title: cover rubbing, spine creasing, and grease-pencil pricing to the front cover are endemic.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is correct: the US Popular Library paperback original of 1955 is the true first, and no UK or foreign-language edition precedes or is simultaneous with it. There is no rival edition to name — everything else is downstream. Later UK and US reissues (including the Orion Crime Masterworks and Mulholland Classic editions) are reprints, "first thus" at best; the claim in the census that no hardcover appeared "until much later" is directionally right but the sources consulted do not fix a date for a first hardcover appearance, so no such date should be published.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition exists — the title is a mass-market paperback original. The reprint tells are the successor imprints rather than club markings: any copy bearing an imprint other than Popular Library, carrying an ISBN, or showing a number line is a later reissue, since none of those features belong to a 1955 Popular Library. Later Popular Library printings of #716 would be stated on the copyright page.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *After Dark, My Sweet* by Jim Thompson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/after-dark-my-sweet
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.