# Is "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (Longmans, Green and Co., 1932) is identified by: First edition, first impression: Longmans, Green and Co., London, published 8 September 1932. True first is Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1932.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first impression: Longmans, Green and Co., London, published 8 September 1932
- Octavo (approx
- 19 x 13 cm), collating xii, 307, [1] pp
- Bound in the publisher's blue cloth with the lettering in white to the front board and spine — confirmed by two independent ABA/ILAB/PBFA dealer descriptions
- The first-issue jacket is priced at the flap, and unclipped copies retain that price
- The impression statement, not the title-page year, is the deciding point: dealers document a first-edition second impression also dated 1932 (the book sold immediately), so a 1932 title page alone does not establish a first impression — the copyright-page verso must be checked for an added impression or reprint statement
- Publisher imprint reads Longmans, Green and Co.

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Stella Gibbons |
| Publisher | Longmans, Green and Co. |
| Year | 1932 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first impression: Longmans, Green and Co., London, published 8 September 1932 |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
First edition, first impression: Longmans, Green and Co., London, published 8 September 1932. Octavo (approx. 19 x 13 cm), collating xii, 307, [1] pp. Bound in the publisher's blue cloth with the lettering in white to the front board and spine — confirmed by two independent ABA/ILAB/PBFA dealer descriptions. The first-issue jacket is priced at the flap, and unclipped copies retain that price. The impression statement, not the title-page year, is the deciding point: dealers document a first-edition second impression also dated 1932 (the book sold immediately), so a 1932 title page alone does not establish a first impression — the copyright-page verso must be checked for an added impression or reprint statement. No independent transcription of the first impression's verso wording was located, so none is published here.

## Is this the true first?
True first is Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1932. The census note that 'the US Longmans New York issue followed' is misleading and is corrected here: the London first edition's own title-page imprint line reads 'London, New York & Toronto' because that was Longmans' standard triple-imprint, so the presence of 'New York' on the title page does NOT make a copy American — this is the principal trap on this book. A Longmans, Green issue associated with New York and dated 1933 appears in aggregated library data, but it could not be corroborated against a second independent source in this pass; no claim is made about it beyond that it is not the true first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Longmans reprinted quickly, and a first-edition second impression dated 1932 is documented by a dealer — the commonest trap on this title. Later printings under other imprints (Penguin, Folio Society and Guild Publishing among those recorded) are reprints and carry their own imprints on the title page. No specific book-club issue of the 1932 Longmans first was corroborated against two independent sources in this pass.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Cold Comfort Farm* by Stella Gibbons a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/cold-comfort-farm
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.