# Is "In Darkest England and the Way Out" by William Booth a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of In Darkest England and the Way Out by William Booth (International Headquarters of the Salvation Army, 1890) is identified by: Tall octavo, original blue cloth, with a large folding hand-colored (chromolithograph) frontispiece chart illustrating the "Scheme of Social Selection and Salvation," text illustrated throughout, collating roughly 285 pages of text plus xxxi pages of appendices.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Tall octavo, original blue cloth, with a large folding hand-colored (chromolithograph) frontispiece chart illustrating the "Scheme of Social Selection and Salvation," text illustrated throughout, collating roughly 285 pages of text plus xxxi pages of appendices
- The true first issue was printed by William Burgess (at the Carlyle Press) and does NOT contain the misprint "Chstian religion" (missing the letter "r") at page 47, line 1; that misprint appears instead in a second issue printed the same year by McCorquodale & Co., which also resets the final line of the dedication into a corrected type size
- William Booth worked closely with the journalist W. T. Stead in preparing the text, though only Booth is credited as author on the title page
- Publisher imprint reads International Headquarters of the Salvation Army
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | William Booth |
| Publisher | International Headquarters of the Salvation Army |
| Year | 1890 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Tall octavo, original blue cloth, with a large folding hand-colored (chromolithograph) frontispiece chart illustrating the "Scheme of… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Tall octavo, original blue cloth, with a large folding hand-colored (chromolithograph) frontispiece chart illustrating the "Scheme of Social Selection and Salvation," text illustrated throughout, collating roughly 285 pages of text plus xxxi pages of appendices. The true first issue was printed by William Burgess (at the Carlyle Press) and does NOT contain the misprint "Chstian religion" (missing the letter "r") at page 47, line 1; that misprint appears instead in a second issue printed the same year by McCorquodale & Co., which also resets the final line of the dedication into a corrected type size. William Booth worked closely with the journalist W. T. Stead in preparing the text, though only Booth is credited as author on the title page.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The book sold in very large quantities and was kept in print for decades in cheaper formats; copies lacking the large folding color frontispiece chart, or bound in later Salvation Army promotional cloth, are not first-issue copies.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *In Darkest England and the Way Out* by William Booth a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/in-darkest-england-and-the-way-out
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.