# Is "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (Greenwillow Books, 1986) is identified by: True first is the Greenwillow Books hardcover, New York, 1986 (ISBN 0-688-06233-4), 212pp, 24cm. Census claim — US-first precedence for a UK author — is supported, but the month-level dates in circulation are not.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first is the Greenwillow Books hardcover, New York, 1986 (ISBN 0-688-06233-4), 212pp, 24cm
- The copyright page carries a stated "First Edition"; the Library of Congress record (LCCN 85021981) transcribes the edition statement as "the printed pricet ed." Greenwillow was a William Morrow imprint, and Morrow-family firsts of this period pair the "First Edition" statement with a number line that must still retain the 1 — check both
- Jacket art by Jos A. Smith (single-dealer attribution)
- Priced jacket: price present at the flap, unclipped; the LoC record notes the publisher's price on the second page of the jacket
- Basis for the 2004 Miyazaki film, which drives demand for the 1986 firsts
- Publisher imprint reads Greenwillow Books
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Diana Wynne Jones |
| Publisher | Greenwillow Books |
| Year | 1986 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first is the Greenwillow Books hardcover, New York, 1986 (ISBN 0-688-06233-4), 212pp, 24cm |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first is the Greenwillow Books hardcover, New York, 1986 (ISBN 0-688-06233-4), 212pp, 24cm. The copyright page carries a stated "First Edition"; the Library of Congress record (LCCN 85021981) transcribes the edition statement as "the printed pricet ed." Greenwillow was a William Morrow imprint, and Morrow-family firsts of this period pair the "First Edition" statement with a number line that must still retain the 1 — check both. Jacket art by Jos A. Smith (single-dealer attribution). Priced jacket: price present at the flap, unclipped; the LoC record notes the publisher's price on the second page of the jacket. Basis for the 2004 Miyazaki film, which drives demand for the 1986 firsts.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim — US-first precedence for a UK author — is supported, but the month-level dates in circulation are not. Two independent lines of evidence favour Greenwillow: the LoC record is an original CIP record created in September 1985 for the 1986 US publication and carries no "Originally published" note (contrast the LoC-derived Eddings/Corgi record, which does carry exactly such a note, showing that LoC records prior foreign publication as a matter of practice); and specialist dealers describe the Methuen Children's Books edition (London, 1986, ISBN 0-416-61590-2, blue cloth-effect boards with yellow spine titles) as the "first British edition, first printing" — a formula the trade reserves for books first published elsewhere. Caveat published deliberately: the widely repeated months (Greenwillow April 1986 / Methuen November 1986) trace back to Wikipedia's infobox, which is itself internally inconsistent, and were not independently confirmed. Both 1986 editions are collected — the Greenwillow as the first, the Methuen as the first British edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1986 Greenwillow or Methuen firsts in the sources consulted. Later "first thus" traps are numerous and film-driven: the HarperCollins/HarperTrophy reissues (ISBNs 0-06-441034-X, 0-06-029881-2, 0-06-147878-4), the Magnet/Mandarin UK paperbacks (Teens Mandarin, 1991), and the various post-2004 movie tie-in printings.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Howl's Moving Castle* by Diana Wynne Jones a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/howls-moving-castle
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.