# Is "Darker Than You Think" by Jack Williamson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson (Fantasy Press, 1948) is identified by: First book edition: Fantasy Press, Reading, Pennsylvania, 1948. US original and the true first book edition; the census claim is correct.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First book edition: Fantasy Press, Reading, Pennsylvania, 1948. "First Edition" is stated on the copyright page with no further printing noted, per the Fantasy Press house practice documented by Quill & Brush and confirmed by L. W. Currey's Fantasy Press entries
- The printing was issued in two states: a limited issue of 500 copies hand-numbered and signed by Williamson on an integral limitation leaf, and an unsigned trade issue (catalogued by ABAA dealers as the "first trade edition") that lacks the leaf — both are the 1948 first edition
- Binding points agreed by two independent dealers: green cloth with the spine titled in gilt and orange/decorated illustrated endpapers; one dealer additionally reports the top and bottom edges of the text block stained black, which is uncorroborated and should not be relied on alone
- Interior illustration and the frontispiece are by Edd Cartier, with the dust-jacket art attributed to A. J. Donnell; the jacket's heavy black ink background rubs easily, so rubbing is a condition matter and not an issue point
- Note that dealer descriptions of the cloth shade vary between "green" and "turquoise" — treat them as describing the same cloth
- Publisher imprint reads Fantasy Press
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jack Williamson |
| Publisher | Fantasy Press |
| Year | 1948 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First book edition: Fantasy Press, Reading, Pennsylvania, 1948. "First Edition" is stated on the copyright page with no further printing… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First book edition: Fantasy Press, Reading, Pennsylvania, 1948. "First Edition" is stated on the copyright page with no further printing noted, per the Fantasy Press house practice documented by Quill & Brush and confirmed by L. W. Currey's Fantasy Press entries. The printing was issued in two states: a limited issue of 500 copies hand-numbered and signed by Williamson on an integral limitation leaf, and an unsigned trade issue (catalogued by ABAA dealers as the "first trade edition") that lacks the leaf — both are the 1948 first edition. Binding points agreed by two independent dealers: green cloth with the spine titled in gilt and orange/decorated illustrated endpapers; one dealer additionally reports the top and bottom edges of the text block stained black, which is uncorroborated and should not be relied on alone. Interior illustration and the frontispiece are by Edd Cartier, with the dust-jacket art attributed to A. J. Donnell; the jacket's heavy black ink background rubs easily, so rubbing is a condition matter and not an issue point. Note that dealer descriptions of the cloth shade vary between "green" and "turquoise" — treat them as describing the same cloth.

## Is this the true first?
US original and the true first book edition; the census claim is correct. It expands the novella of the same title from Unknown (December 1940) to novel length, so the magazine text is the only prior appearance and is not a book edition. No earlier or competing British edition is documented in the sources consulted — first British publication is later — so there is no UK-vs-US precedence question. New Mexico author (Portales).

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No contemporaneous book-club issue is documented in the sources consulted. The governing reprint tell is the Fantasy Press imprint itself: Quill & Brush records that the publisher's "First Edition" statement was sometimes left standing on offset reprints issued under other publishers' imprints, so a "First Edition" line means nothing unless the spine, title page and jacket all read Fantasy Press, Reading, Pennsylvania, 1948. Later paperback and trade reissues carry their own imprints and are readily distinguished.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Darker Than You Think* by Jack Williamson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/darker-than-you-think
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.