# Is "Babbling April" by Graham Greene a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Babbling April by Graham Greene (Basil Blackwell, 1925) is identified by: Greene's genuine first book: Basil Blackwell (Oxford) 1925, a collection of undergraduate verse published while he was still at Oxford. Basil Blackwell (Oxford) 1925 is the only true first; there is no US edition and no later reprint, so no other edition precedes or competes with it.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Greene's genuine first book: Basil Blackwell (Oxford) 1925, a collection of undergraduate verse published while he was still at Oxford
- The sole edition is bound in grey paper-covered boards lettered in blue, in a pale-grey dust wrapper printed in black, collating [viii] + 32pp, and it was never reprinted
- Reported quantities vary between sources — roughly 300 copies bound up from a print run of about 500, with one census also citing a small handful of advance/review copies — but dealers agree the book is genuinely scarce
- Publisher imprint reads Basil Blackwell
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Graham Greene |
| Publisher | Basil Blackwell |
| Year | 1925 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Greene's genuine first book: Basil Blackwell (Oxford) 1925, a collection of undergraduate verse published while he was still at Oxford |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
Greene's genuine first book: Basil Blackwell (Oxford) 1925, a collection of undergraduate verse published while he was still at Oxford. The sole edition is bound in grey paper-covered boards lettered in blue, in a pale-grey dust wrapper printed in black, collating [viii] + 32pp, and it was never reprinted. Reported quantities vary between sources — roughly 300 copies bound up from a print run of about 500, with one census also citing a small handful of advance/review copies — but dealers agree the book is genuinely scarce.

## Is this the true first?
Basil Blackwell (Oxford) 1925 is the only true first; there is no US edition and no later reprint, so no other edition precedes or competes with it.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Never reprinted and never issued by a book club; beware modern facsimile dust jackets sold separately by facsimile-jacket makers — an authentic copy has an original grey wrapper printed in black.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Babbling April* by Graham Greene a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/babbling-april
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.