# Is "If This Is a Man" by Primo Levi a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (Francesco De Silva, Turin, 1947) is identified by: Italian true first: Se questo è un uomo, Francesco De Silva, Turin, published 11 October 1947 in the series Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg (subtitled "Documenti e studi di storia contemporanea"), directed by Franco Antonicelli. The census claim is confirmed on the Italian first and corrected on the English imprint: the sources consulted place the 1959 Orion Press first English edition in New York, and no separate simultaneous London issue is documented among them — cite it as New York rather than "New York/London".

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Italian true first: Se questo è un uomo, Francesco De Silva, Turin, published 11 October 1947 in the series Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg (subtitled "Documenti e studi di storia contemporanea"), directed by Franco Antonicelli
- 198 pp.; the cover reproduces a graphically retouched Goya drawing (no
- 49 from Álbum C, "La misma", 1808–14)
- Print run 2,500 copies, of which about 1,500 sold, mostly in Turin
- Because there was a single printing, identification rests on the imprint, series and date rather than on any printing statement or number line — a copy is either the De Silva 1947 issue or it is not the first edition
- The 1947 text is itself a distinct state: it opens at the Fossoli camp in February 1944 and ends with the liberation of 27 January 1945, and it is materially shorter and bleaker than the revised text Einaudi published in 1958, which adds thousands of words
- Publisher imprint reads Francesco De Silva, Turin

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Primo Levi |
| Publisher | Francesco De Silva, Turin |
| Year | 1947 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Italian true first: Se questo è un uomo, Francesco De Silva, Turin, published 11 October 1947 in the series Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Italian true first: Se questo è un uomo, Francesco De Silva, Turin, published 11 October 1947 in the series Biblioteca Leone Ginzburg (subtitled "Documenti e studi di storia contemporanea"), directed by Franco Antonicelli. 198 pp.; the cover reproduces a graphically retouched Goya drawing (no. 49 from Álbum C, "La misma", 1808–14). Print run 2,500 copies, of which about 1,500 sold, mostly in Turin. Because there was a single printing, identification rests on the imprint, series and date rather than on any printing statement or number line — a copy is either the De Silva 1947 issue or it is not the first edition. The 1947 text is itself a distinct state: it opens at the Fossoli camp in February 1944 and ends with the liberation of 27 January 1945, and it is materially shorter and bleaker than the revised text Einaudi published in 1958, which adds thousands of words. Five extracts had appeared in periodical form earlier in 1947 under the title "Sul fondo". First edition in English: If This Is a Man, The Orion Press, New York, 1959, translated by Stuart Woolf — original blue cloth with gilt spine lettering, in the Wladislaw Finne-designed jacket.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed on the Italian first and corrected on the English imprint: the sources consulted place the 1959 Orion Press first English edition in New York, and no separate simultaneous London issue is documented among them — cite it as New York rather than "New York/London". Two traps attach to this title. First, the Einaudi edition of 1958 is the revised "definitive" text and is a first thus, not the first edition, despite being the text nearly all later translations follow. Second, the title trap: "Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity" is the American retitling of the same Stuart Woolf translation on later US issues, not a different work and not a first — the first English appearance is under the title If This Is a Man.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue of the De Silva 1947 edition is documented; the edition was small and provincial. The documented tells are editorial rather than mechanical: any Einaudi imprint (1958 onward) is the revised text, and any copy titled "Survival in Auschwitz" is a later American issue of the Woolf translation. Later Orion Press and subsequent American printings likewise post-date the 1959 first English edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *If This Is a Man* by Primo Levi a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/if-this-is-a-man
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.