# Is "Goodnight Mister Tom" by Michelle Magorian a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (Kestrel Books, 1981) is identified by: First issued by Kestrel Books, Penguin's children's hardback imprint, London, 1981, ISBN 0722657013 / 9780722657010; octavo, 304 pages, the author's debut novel. UK Kestrel Books, London, 1981 is the true first and precedes the US edition; the census claim is CONFIRMED.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First issued by Kestrel Books, Penguin's children's hardback imprint, London, 1981, ISBN 0722657013 / 9780722657010; octavo, 304 pages, the author's debut novel
- Bound in olive-green cloth over boards with copper-gilt lettering to the spine — two independent dealer descriptions agree on olive/dark-olive green cloth with gilt or copper-gilt spine titling
- The colour pictorial dust jacket is by Vanessa Julian-Ottie and is a wraparound 'fold-over scene' design; the jacket should be unclipped with the price present at the flap
- Kestrel titles of this period carry no number line: the first impression states 'First published 1981' on the copyright page with no subsequent impressions listed, and the presence of any later impression line rules out a first
- The dealer claim, frequently repeated in the trade, of a first printing of 'possibly as few as 500 copies' rests on a single unsupported assertion and is deliberately not adopted here
- Publisher imprint reads Kestrel Books
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Michelle Magorian |
| Publisher | Kestrel Books |
| Year | 1981 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | First issued by Kestrel Books, Penguin's children's hardback imprint, London, 1981, ISBN 0722657013 / 9780722657010; octavo, 304 pages, the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First issued by Kestrel Books, Penguin's children's hardback imprint, London, 1981, ISBN 0722657013 / 9780722657010; octavo, 304 pages, the author's debut novel. Bound in olive-green cloth over boards with copper-gilt lettering to the spine — two independent dealer descriptions agree on olive/dark-olive green cloth with gilt or copper-gilt spine titling. The colour pictorial dust jacket is by Vanessa Julian-Ottie and is a wraparound 'fold-over scene' design; the jacket should be unclipped with the price present at the flap. Kestrel titles of this period carry no number line: the first impression states 'First published 1981' on the copyright page with no subsequent impressions listed, and the presence of any later impression line rules out a first. The dealer claim, frequently repeated in the trade, of a first printing of 'possibly as few as 500 copies' rests on a single unsupported assertion and is deliberately not adopted here.

## Is this the true first?
UK Kestrel Books, London, 1981 is the true first and precedes the US edition; the census claim is CONFIRMED. The first American edition is Harper & Row, New York, 1982, and it was retitled 'Good Night, Mr. Tom' (ISBN 0060240784) — the differing title styling (three words with a comma and the abbreviation 'Mr.', versus the British 'Goodnight Mister Tom') is the fastest way to tell the two editions apart at a glance. Both are collected, the Kestrel as the true first and the author's debut, the Harper & Row as the first American.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No UK book-club issue is documented in the sources consulted. Later-issue tells: the Puffin paperback (from 1982) and the Harper Trophy paperback (ISBN 0064401746) are reprints, not firsts; any copy titled 'Good Night, Mr. Tom' is the American edition or a later US reprint and never the Kestrel first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Goodnight Mister Tom* by Michelle Magorian a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/goodnight-mister-tom
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.