# Is "Demons by Daylight" by Ramsey Campbell a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Demons by Daylight by Ramsey Campbell (Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1973) is identified by: Arkham House first editions of this era carry no printing statement, so identification is by publisher practice and colophon: with the sole exception of the collected works of H. The census claim is confirmed as to precedence — Arkham House, Sauk City, 1973 is the true first and the only hardcover of the original text — but its wording that this is the "only edition" is wrong.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Arkham House first editions of this era carry no printing statement, so identification is by publisher practice and colophon: with the sole exception of the collected works of H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham House did not reprint its titles, and through the late 1970s always placed a colophon (the Frank Utpatel design of 1944) at the back of each book, where any reprint would have been noted
- A first is therefore an Arkham House 1973 copy whose rear colophon bears no reprint notation
- The book is an octavo of 153 pages in black cloth over boards with gilt lettering to the spine, in a colour pictorial dust jacket designed by Eddie Jones (commissioned by Campbell), with the price present at the front flap
- The printing was 3,472 copies — Arkham's own figure, per S. T. Joshi's Sixty Years of Arkham House; several dealers round it to 3,500
- Campbell's second collection, it was scheduled for 1971 and delayed two years by August Derleth's death
- Publisher imprint reads Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ramsey Campbell |
| Publisher | Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin |
| Year | 1973 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Arkham House first editions of this era carry no printing statement, so identification is by publisher practice and colophon: with the sole… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
Arkham House first editions of this era carry no printing statement, so identification is by publisher practice and colophon: with the sole exception of the collected works of H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham House did not reprint its titles, and through the late 1970s always placed a colophon (the Frank Utpatel design of 1944) at the back of each book, where any reprint would have been noted. A first is therefore an Arkham House 1973 copy whose rear colophon bears no reprint notation. The book is an octavo of 153 pages in black cloth over boards with gilt lettering to the spine, in a colour pictorial dust jacket designed by Eddie Jones (commissioned by Campbell), with the price present at the front flap. The printing was 3,472 copies — Arkham's own figure, per S. T. Joshi's Sixty Years of Arkham House; several dealers round it to 3,500. Campbell's second collection, it was scheduled for 1971 and delayed two years by August Derleth's death.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed as to precedence — Arkham House, Sauk City, 1973 is the true first and the only hardcover of the original text — but its wording that this is the "only edition" is wrong. The collection was reprinted twice in paperback, and no earlier or simultaneous UK edition is documented in the sources consulted. The important "first thus" trap is the Jove/HBJ paperback of May 1979, which is not the same book: it drops "The Second Staircase" and adds "Reply Guaranteed" and "The Telephones." The Carroll & Graf paperback of 1990 restores the Arkham House contents but remains a reprint.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Arkham House titles were not issued through book clubs and no book-club printing is documented, so the usual blind-stamp/unpriced-jacket checks do not arise here. The live trap is the jacket rather than the book: because the Arkham first is unmarked and the printing was small, facsimile dust jackets for Demons by Daylight are commercially available and are sometimes supplied to jacketless copies — inspect the jacket for modern paper stock, sharp unaged edges and the absence of the original flap printing. The 1979 Jove/HBJ and 1990 Carroll & Graf paperbacks are the other routine misattributions.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Demons by Daylight* by Ramsey Campbell a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/demons-by-daylight
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.