5 Wilkie Collins first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Woman in White (1860) to The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice (1878) across 5 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Wilkie Collins 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.
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- The Woman in White — 1860 · Sampson Low, Son & Co.Three volumes, Sampson Low, Son & Co., London, 1860 (following serialization in All the Year Round). The two reliable first-issue points are: the original cloth with the figure of the woman stamped in WHITE on the spine (later issues have her stamped in blind), and the 16-page publisher's catalogue at the rear of volume III dated August 1860 (catalogues dated later, such as November 1860, indicate a later issue).…. The London Sampson Low 1860 three-decker is the true first; the Harper American edition of 1860 is secondary. Precedence and issue are established by the August 1860 rear catalogue in volume III and the woman-stamped-in-white spine, not by the year alone. Later British issues carry the woman stamped in blind on the spine and rear catalogues dated after August 1860; corrected-text and one-volume reprints are later still.
- No Name — 1862 · Sampson Low, Son, and Co.First edition, three volumes, octavo, published in December 1862 by Sampson Low, Son, and Co. (a large first printing of 4,000 copies, of which all but 400 had sold by the end of the first day), paginated ix,[i],339,[1]; [iv],363,[1]; [ii],408, following serialization in Dickens's All the Year Round. Half-titles are called for in volumes I and II. Cited as Sadleir, Excursions 141, and Parrish 45-46. The English three-volume edition (Sampson Low, December 1862) precedes rival American editions from Harper (New York), Gardner Fuller (Boston, two volumes), and West and Johnson (Richmond), all of which followed in 1863. A small number of unsold 1862 sheets were rebound in blue cloth for an 1863 remainder issue, and the 1864 one-volume reprint added a Millais frontispiece not present in the original three-volume first edition; genuine first-edition sets are bound in the original scarlet embossed cloth with pale yellow endpapers.
- The Moonstone — 1868 · Tinsley BrothersThree volumes, Tinsley Brothers, London, 1868 (following serialization in Dickens's All the Year Round). Verified first-issue points: in Volume I, pages 10 and 11 are transposed; Volume II has the misprint 'treachesrouly' for 'treacherously' at page 129; and Volume III shows a broken bracket at the tail of the title-page. Half-titles present in each volume. Original Tinsley cloth. The UK Tinsley Brothers 1868 three-volume edition is the true first, often cited as the first detective novel in English. The Harper US 1868 edition is secondary. The textual states (transposed pages in Vol. I, the 'treachesrouly' misprint in Vol. II at p.129, and the broken bracket on the Vol. III title) are the recognized points. Corrected and one-volume reprints are later.
- The Law and the Lady — 1875 · Chatto & WindusPublished in the standard three-volume format by Chatto & Windus of Piccadilly in 1875 under a contract signed in September 1874, The Law and the Lady was the first new novel Collins placed with Chatto & Windus, who became his principal publisher for the rest of his career. Each volume of the first edition is bound in plain green cloth without decoration, apart from a publisher's device blocked in blind on the…. Later Chatto & Windus 'Piccadilly Novels' collected-edition reprints and cheap colonial reissues are bound in the more elaborately gilt- and blind-decorated green cloth that Chatto standardized on for that series from the mid-1870s onward, rather than the plain blind-stamped green cloth and plain endpapers of the 1875 three-volume first.
- The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice — 1878 · Rose-Belford Publishing Co.The true first edition is the Canadian printing issued by the Rose-Belford Publishing Company of Toronto in October 1878, a single octavo volume of 225 pages bound in original green cloth gilt. It followed the novel's serialization in Belgravia magazine (June-November 1878) and preceded the Chatto & Windus London edition, which did not appear until November 1878 in an issue dated 1879. The London edition was…. The Toronto Rose-Belford edition (1878) precedes the Chatto & Windus London edition (issued November 1878, dated 1879, in two volumes with 'My Lady's Money' added) and is the true first book edition. Reprints from Chatto & Windus's later 'New Edition' series and cheap one-volume Collins reissues drop the Rose-Belford Toronto imprint and rebind in uniform publisher's cloth; any copy dated 1879 or later, or lacking the Toronto imprint, is not the true first.
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