# Is "Deaths and Entrances" by Dylan Thomas a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Deaths and Entrances by Dylan Thomas (J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1946) is identified by: First edition, first impression: small octavo, 66 pp., bound in orange cloth with the backstrip lettered in gilt, the copyright page reading "First published 1946" with no added impression or reprint line. Dent (London), 1946 is the only first edition of this collection.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first impression: small octavo, 66 pp., bound in orange cloth with the backstrip lettered in gilt, the copyright page reading "First published 1946" with no added impression or reprint line
- The first printing was 3,000 copies (Rolph B10)
- The jacket should be present, unclipped, with the price still at the front flap
- Dent reprinted quickly and the common trap is a later impression: copies dated 1947 and 1949 are recorded, and dealers offer "third impression of the first edition" copies in the identical orange cloth, so the copyright page — not the binding — is the test
- Publisher imprint reads J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Dylan Thomas |
| Publisher | J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London |
| Year | 1946 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, first impression: small octavo, 66 pp., bound in orange cloth with the backstrip lettered in gilt, the copyright page… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first impression: small octavo, 66 pp., bound in orange cloth with the backstrip lettered in gilt, the copyright page reading "First published 1946" with no added impression or reprint line. The first printing was 3,000 copies (Rolph B10). The jacket should be present, unclipped, with the price still at the front flap. Dent reprinted quickly and the common trap is a later impression: copies dated 1947 and 1949 are recorded, and dealers offer "third impression of the first edition" copies in the identical orange cloth, so the copyright page — not the binding — is the test.

## Is this the true first?
Dent (London), 1946 is the only first edition of this collection. No separately published American edition is recorded: an Open Library sweep of the title returns Dent imprints only (plus much later fine-press printings), and no US issue appears in the trade. American readers met these poems — including "Fern Hill" and "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" — in New Directions' Selected Writings of Dylan Thomas (New York, 1946) and later in Collected Poems 1934–1952 (New Directions, 1953). Those are "first thus" books and are not first editions of Deaths and Entrances; the census claim is confirmed.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition documented. The documented later-issue tells are Dent's own reprints — the 1947 and 1949 printings and the 1965 and later Dent reissues — which add a reprint or impression line to the copyright page; jackets on later impressions carry a different flap price from the first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Deaths and Entrances* by Dylan Thomas a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/deaths-and-entrances
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.