# Is "Five on a Treasure Island (Famous Five #1)" by Enid Blyton a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Five on a Treasure Island (Famous Five #1) by Enid Blyton (Hodder & Stoughton, 1942) is identified by: First published London, August 1942, collating 191 + i pp., illustrated by Eileen A. UK Hodder & Stoughton, London, August 1942 is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First published London, August 1942, collating 191 + i pp., illustrated by Eileen A. Soper with line drawings throughout and 32 full-page monochrome illustrations
- The first edition is bound in publisher's light/powder blue cloth, blocked and lettered in black to the upper board and spine, in Soper's pictorial dust wrapper with the price present at the front flap (unclipped jackets are preferred; a clipped flap removes the point)
- The standard reference is Tony Summerfield, Enid Blyton: An Illustrated Bibliography, Part 1, p
- 58, which dealers cite for the collation
- A wartime production tell supports the date: the text block is printed on poor wartime stock under paper rationing and is characteristically toned
- One dealer reports that the correct first-issue wrapper has wider flaps than later ones — this is single-sourced and should not be relied on without corroboration
- Publisher imprint reads Hodder & Stoughton

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Enid Blyton |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Year | 1942 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | First published London, August 1942, collating 191 + i pp., illustrated by Eileen A. Soper with line drawings throughout and 32 full-page… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First published London, August 1942, collating 191 + i pp., illustrated by Eileen A. Soper with line drawings throughout and 32 full-page monochrome illustrations. The first edition is bound in publisher's light/powder blue cloth, blocked and lettered in black to the upper board and spine, in Soper's pictorial dust wrapper with the price present at the front flap (unclipped jackets are preferred; a clipped flap removes the point). The standard reference is Tony Summerfield, Enid Blyton: An Illustrated Bibliography, Part 1, p. 58, which dealers cite for the collation. A wartime production tell supports the date: the text block is printed on poor wartime stock under paper rationing and is characteristically toned. One dealer reports that the correct first-issue wrapper has wider flaps than later ones — this is single-sourced and should not be relied on without corroboration. The dust wrapper is the fragile element and the usual point of failure; the jacket, not the book, is what is scarce.

## Is this the true first?
UK Hodder & Stoughton, London, August 1942 is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed. There is no competing US or other-language edition of the first Famous Five title from 1942 — Blyton is a British publishing phenomenon and her firsts are British imprints, so no UK-vs-US precedence question arises here. Blyton is indeed absent from the inventory; as the census note observes, she is the best-selling children's author in British history, and this is the foundation title of the series.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition documented in the sources consulted. The reprint field is the real hazard, because the title has been reissued continuously by several houses under different imprints — documented reprints include Hodder & Stoughton (1951), Knight (1967, 1969, 1970), Brockhampton (1974) and Longmans (1977), and later Hodder issues carry revised/updated text and non-Soper artwork. Any imprint other than Hodder & Stoughton is automatically a reprint; a Hodder copy must match the 1942 collation, the Soper illustrations and the blue cloth blocked in black.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Five on a Treasure Island (Famous Five #1)* by Enid Blyton a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/five-on-a-treasure-island-famous-five-1
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.