# Is "At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels" by H. P. Lovecraft a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels by H. P. Lovecraft (Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1964) is identified by: No printing statement appears on the first printing. Arkham House (Sauk City), 1964, is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed: the first UK edition is Victor Gollancz (London), 1966, a first edition and first impression in its own right, bound in black buckram with gilt spine lettering and carrying the same selection.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- No printing statement appears on the first printing
- The colophon at the rear states an edition of three thousand copies although the run in fact came to 3,552, so a stated three-thousand colophon is normal on a first and is not itself evidence of anything later
- Later printings are stated and are catalogued as such by dealers — "a second printing of three thousand printed copies stated," "stated third impression," "stated corrected eighth printing" — so any impression notice rules out a first printing
- The first-state binding carries no head- or tailbands; an ABAA dealer description and the collecting literature agree on this point for this title
- The Lee Brown Coye jacket is green in the first state, depicting a shoggoth from the title novella; red and orange jackets are later states, and later priced jackets sit at a higher figure at the front flap
- Publisher imprint reads Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | H. P. Lovecraft |
| Publisher | Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin |
| Year | 1964 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | No printing statement appears on the first printing |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
No printing statement appears on the first printing. The colophon at the rear states an edition of three thousand copies although the run in fact came to 3,552, so a stated three-thousand colophon is normal on a first and is not itself evidence of anything later. Later printings are stated and are catalogued as such by dealers — "a second printing of three thousand printed copies stated," "stated third impression," "stated corrected eighth printing" — so any impression notice rules out a first printing. The first-state binding carries no head- or tailbands; an ABAA dealer description and the collecting literature agree on this point for this title. The Lee Brown Coye jacket is green in the first state, depicting a shoggoth from the title novella; red and orange jackets are later states, and later priced jackets sit at a higher figure at the front flap.

## Is this the true first?
Arkham House (Sauk City), 1964, is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed: the first UK edition is Victor Gollancz (London), 1966, a first edition and first impression in its own right, bound in black buckram with gilt spine lettering and carrying the same selection. Both are collected — the Gollancz is the one to hold for a UK-first collection — but the Arkham precedes it by two years and is the true first. As with the companion Arkham volumes this is a "first thus": the novels had all been published previously, and what is first here is the selection and Derleth's introductory essay.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition of the Arkham volume is documented. The traps are Arkham's own stated later printings, and above all the corrected fifth printing of 1986 (reported at 3,990 copies) edited by S. T. Joshi, which restores the texts and drops Derleth's introduction; printings six through nine follow to 2001 carrying the corrected text. Facsimile jackets for Arkham House titles are commercially available, so a fresh green jacket is not by itself evidence of a first-state jacket.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels* by H. P. Lovecraft a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/at-the-mountains-of-madness-and-other-novels
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.