# Is "Almayer's Folly" by Joseph Conrad a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad (T. Fisher Unwin, 1895) is identified by: First edition, first state, 1895; 272 pp., octavo, with half-title present and the title page printed in red and black. T.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first state, 1895
- 272 pp., octavo, with half-title present and the title page printed in red and black
- Bound in publisher's dark green cloth, lettered in gilt on the spine, top edge gilt and the remaining edges untrimmed
- The first state point is typographic: the type is dropped/missing in the final two lines of page 110 (Cagle A1a
- Print-run figures conflict across the record — Conrad wrote of 1,100 copies in 1895, the publisher suggested 1,000, and Wise gave 2,000 — so no single figure should be stated as settled
- No jacket points are documented for this title
- Publisher imprint reads T. Fisher Unwin

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Joseph Conrad |
| Publisher | T. Fisher Unwin |
| Year | 1895 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first state, 1895 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first state, 1895; 272 pp., octavo, with half-title present and the title page printed in red and black. Bound in publisher's dark green cloth, lettered in gilt on the spine, top edge gilt and the remaining edges untrimmed. The first state point is typographic: the type is dropped/missing in the final two lines of page 110 (Cagle A1a(1); Wise 1; Smith 1). Print-run figures conflict across the record — Conrad wrote of 1,100 copies in 1895, the publisher suggested 1,000, and Wise gave 2,000 — so no single figure should be stated as settled. No jacket points are documented for this title.

## Is this the true first?
T. Fisher Unwin, London, is the true first of Conrad's first book, released at the end of April 1895 (first reviewed in The Scotsman, 29 April 1895), and the census claim is confirmed. The first American — Macmillan and Co., New York, 1895, roughly 650 copies, published in the first week of May 1895 per Cagle — is a genuinely distinct edition: it was typeset from uncorrected proofs and its text varies considerably from the English. It is bound in very dark blue cloth with double blind rules framing each cover and 'Macmillan & Co' at the spine foot (Supino binding A). Both are collected, but the margin is days rather than months: Macmillan's copies were deposited at the Library of Congress on 15 April and one copy reached Wilson's lending library on 30 April, so catalogue the Unwin as the true first without overstating the gap.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No contemporaneous book-club edition is documented. Copies lacking the page 110 type-drop are later. Conrad's later collected and uniform editions are 'first thus' traps and carry none of the 1895 points.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Almayer's Folly* by Joseph Conrad a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/almayers-folly
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.