2 Knut Hamsun first editions are documented on this shelf, from Hunger (Sult) (1890) to Growth of the Soil (1917) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Knut Hamsun title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.

Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a Knut Hamsun copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

Hunger (Sult) — 1890 · P.G. Philipsens ForlagThe true first is the 1890 P.G. Philipsens Forlag (Copenhagen) printing, octavo, 333 pp. (collating [4], 333, [1]), published 2 June 1890 in a first print run of 2,100 copies. It was issued simultaneously in two formats: a cheaper stitched/paperbound issue (heftet) and a publisher's cloth binding (forlagsbind). Hamsun asked for a black binding, but the publisher's cloth was actually issued in several colors —…. The true first edition is the original-language 1890 Sult, P.G. Philipsens Forlag, Copenhagen (Dano-Norwegian text). The first English-language edition is Hunger, translated by George Egerton (pseudonym of Mary Chavelita Dunne), published by Leonard Smithers and Co., London, 1899 — publisher's grey cloth stamped in black, octavo, collating x, 312 pp. plus publisher's ads. This Smithers issue also exists in…. No significant book-club edition is a common trap for the original 1890 Sult, which is a genuinely scarce Scandinavian first. The traps here are different: (1) Hamsun's later revised Norwegian/Danish editions and Gyldendal reprintings (revisions in 1899, 1907, 1916) being mistaken for the 1890 first — verify the P.G. Philipsens Forlag, Copenhagen, 1890 imprint and the 333-pp. collation; (2) later owner rebindings….
Growth of the Soil — 1917 · GyldendalTrue first is the Norwegian 'Markens Grøde' (Gyldendalske Boghandel, Kristiania, 1917), issued in two volumes. The first edition in English, translated by W. W. Worster, was published by Gyldendal in London in 1920 (dated 27 April 1920) as a single octavo volume in grass-green cloth/boards lettered in black, 406 pp.; this London 1920 printing is the true first in English and precedes the first American. Alfred A.…. Original-language true first is the Norwegian 'Markens Grøde' (Kristiania, 1917, 2 vols). Among English editions the London Gyldendal 1920 (Worster) is the true first and precedes the New York Knopf 1921 first American — the reverse of the usual US/UK sequence, driven by Hamsun's 1920 Nobel Prize; both the London 1920 single volume and the Knopf 1921 two-volume set are collected. Some copies of the Gyldendal London printing are catalogued as 1921; the 27 April 1920 issue is the first English. The Worster translation was reprinted repeatedly by Knopf (later single-volume and subsequent impressions) — these retain the text but lack the 1920 London / two-volume 1921 Knopf points. No prominent book-club issue is documented for the first English.

More Literary Fiction (UK & World) shelves: Margaret Atwood, Mario Vargas Llosa, Michael Ondaatje, Milan Kundera, Muriel Spark, Nadine Gordimer.

← All authors · All genres · part of the First-Edition Identification resource.