# Is "An Essay on the Principle of Population" by Thomas Robert Malthus a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus (J. Johnson, London, 1798) is identified by: London: Printed for J. No UK/US or original-language question: Malthus wrote in English and the 1798 Johnson octavo is the true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St
- Paul's Church-Yard, 1798
- Octavo (approx
- 215 x 132 mm), collating ix, 396 pp
- The controlling point is negative and simple: the first edition is anonymous — no author's name anywhere on the title page — under the title 'An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr
- Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other Writers.' There is no number line, no edition statement, no printed price and no dust jacket for the period; the expected dress is contemporary calf or original boards
- Publisher imprint reads J. Johnson, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Thomas Robert Malthus |
| Publisher | J. Johnson, London |
| Year | 1798 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1798. Octavo (approx. 215 x 132 mm), collating ix, 396 pp. The controlling point is negative and simple: the first edition is anonymous — no author's name anywhere on the title page — under the title 'An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other Writers.' There is no number line, no edition statement, no printed price and no dust jacket for the period; the expected dress is contemporary calf or original boards. No first-state text error, cancel or issue point is documented for this printing in any of the sources consulted, so identification rests entirely on the 1798 date, the Johnson imprint, the anonymity and the collation — beware descriptions that assert points beyond these. References: Printing and the Mind of Man 251; Norman 1431.

## Is this the true first?
No UK/US or original-language question: Malthus wrote in English and the 1798 Johnson octavo is the true first. The census claim on publisher, city, year and anonymity is confirmed. The edition that trips buyers is the 1803 quarto (London: printed by T. Bensley for J. Johnson), which is the second edition and the first to bear Malthus's name on the title page; it runs roughly four times the length of the 1798 and is routinely described as practically a new book rather than a revision, Malthus himself conceding in the preface that he had taken too gloomy a view in the first. Any title page dated 1798 bearing 'T.R. Malthus' as author is therefore not the first edition. Because the 1803 is a distinct work in substance, collections that want the argument in both its polemical and its mature form treat the 1798 octavo and the 1803 quarto as two books, not two states of one. The census's characterisation of the 1803 as the 'attainable form' is a market judgement, not a bibliographical point, and has been dropped.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue exists for a 1798 imprint. The documented reprint tells are the Royal Economic Society facsimile (London: Macmillan, 1926), which reprints the 1798 text with notes by James Bonar and reproduces the original title page — the Bonar notes and the 1926 imprint give it away — and modern reprint-house editions, such as The Lawbook Exchange's 2007 hardcover reprint of the first edition, which carries an ISBN. Any copy with an ISBN, machine-made paper, a photographically reproduced title page, or modern publisher's casing is a reprint.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *An Essay on the Principle of Population* by Thomas Robert Malthus a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/an-essay-on-the-principle-of-population
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.