# Is "Her Body and Other Parties" by Carmen Maria Machado a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, 2017) is identified by: A trade paperback original, published 3 October 2017, ISBN 978-1-55597-788-7; there is no jacket and therefore no jacket point. The Graywolf Press trade paperback original (Minneapolis, 3 October 2017) is the true first, and the UK publisher's own copyright page concedes the point, reading "First published in the USA in 2017 by Graywolf Press".

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- A trade paperback original, published 3 October 2017, ISBN 978-1-55597-788-7; there is no jacket and therefore no jacket point
- Graywolf's house convention governs the copyright page: between the ISBN and the Library of Congress Control Number sits the number line "2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1" — evens ascending, then odds descending — set directly above the statement "First Graywolf Printing, 2017"
- Note that because of this unusual line the "1" falls at the END of the sequence, not the beginning; later printings drop the 1, so its presence at the tail of the line is what confirms a first printing
- This layout is corroborated across numerous Graywolf 2017 imprints examined in scanned copies (A Doll for Throwing, Cinder, 300 Arguments, Fen, Afterland, Advice from the Lights, Said Not Said, Happy Baby) and in the 2014 scan of Rankine's Citizen, which reads "2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 / First Graywolf Printing, 2014"
- Cover design by Kimberly Glyder; book design by Connie Kuhnz
- Publisher imprint reads Graywolf Press, Minneapolis
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Carmen Maria Machado |
| Publisher | Graywolf Press, Minneapolis |
| Year | 2017 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | A trade paperback original, published 3 October 2017, ISBN 978-1-55597-788-7; there is no jacket and therefore no jacket point |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
A trade paperback original, published 3 October 2017, ISBN 978-1-55597-788-7; there is no jacket and therefore no jacket point. Graywolf's house convention governs the copyright page: between the ISBN and the Library of Congress Control Number sits the number line "2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1" — evens ascending, then odds descending — set directly above the statement "First Graywolf Printing, 2017". Note that because of this unusual line the "1" falls at the END of the sequence, not the beginning; later printings drop the 1, so its presence at the tail of the line is what confirms a first printing. This layout is corroborated across numerous Graywolf 2017 imprints examined in scanned copies (A Doll for Throwing, Cinder, 300 Arguments, Fen, Afterland, Advice from the Lights, Said Not Said, Happy Baby) and in the 2014 scan of Rankine's Citizen, which reads "2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 / First Graywolf Printing, 2014". Cover design by Kimberly Glyder; book design by Connie Kuhnz.

## Is this the true first?
The Graywolf Press trade paperback original (Minneapolis, 3 October 2017) is the true first, and the UK publisher's own copyright page concedes the point, reading "First published in the USA in 2017 by Graywolf Press". The census note's claim that there is "no true first hardcover" needs correcting: a hardcover does exist, but it follows rather than precedes. Powell's Books selected the collection as Indiespensable #70, which produced a Graywolf-made hardcover of roughly 2,000 copies in illustrated boards, signed by Machado on a tipped-in Powell's Indiespensable leaf and issued with an interview booklet; the box shipped November/December 2017, i.e. after the 3 October paperback, so it is a special issue and not the first edition. The UK edition is Serpent's Tail (London), ISBN 9781781259528, catalogued by the publisher as a hardback dated 14 December 2017 — but copies themselves state "First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Serpent's Tail" on the copyright page, with number line "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2" and printed by Clays, St Ives; that 2017/2018 discrepancy between the publisher's catalogue and the book is unresolved and buyers should rely on the copy in hand. A Serpent's Tail B-format paperback (9781781259535) followed 3 January 2019.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is documented. The reprint tell is the number line: on later Graywolf printings the terminal "1" is dropped from "2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1", and the statement is amended from "First Graywolf Printing, 2017". The collection was heavily reprinted after its National Book Award shortlisting, so later printings in identical cover design are common and the copyright page is the only reliable discriminator. The Powell's Indiespensable hardcover and the Serpent's Tail UK hardback are separate issues rather than book clubs, but both are routinely miscatalogued as "first edition" hardcovers.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Her Body and Other Parties* by Carmen Maria Machado a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/her-body-and-other-parties
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.