# Is "Nausea (La Nausée)" by Jean-Paul Sartre a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Nausea (La Nausée) by Jean-Paul Sartre (Gallimard / Nouvelle Revue Française, 1938) is identified by: The true first is the 1938 Gallimard (NRF) trade printing in original off-white printed wrappers, in-8 (roughly 12 x 19 cm), 223 pp., with an achevé d'imprimer dated 5 April 1938. The genuine true first is the 1938 French La Nausée (Gallimard / NRF, Paris; achevé d'imprimer 5 April 1938) — Gaston Gallimard supplied the title, replacing Sartre's working title "Melancholia" (after Dürer's engraving).

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the 1938 Gallimard (NRF) trade printing in original off-white printed wrappers, in-8 (roughly 12 x 19 cm), 223 pp., with an achevé d'imprimer dated 5 April 1938
- It carries no edition/printing statement, so a clean first-printing achevé date and the absence of any later-printing line are the core tells; beware later Gallimard printings that look near-identical but bear a later achevé d'imprimer
- Ahead of the trade issue Gallimard pulled 63 numbered large-paper (grand papier) copies, which are the apex first-edition form: 23 on vélin pur fil (the first paper) and 40 on Alfa (the second paper), of which 15 are hors-commerce copies
- In original wrappers the trade issue is genuinely scarce (fragile wrappers; era-typical browned stock), and service de presse (review) copies exist and are prized, especially when inscribed by Sartre
- Publisher imprint reads Gallimard / Nouvelle Revue Française
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jean-Paul Sartre |
| Publisher | Gallimard / Nouvelle Revue Française |
| Year | 1938 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is the 1938 Gallimard (NRF) trade printing in original off-white printed wrappers, in-8 (roughly 12 x 19 cm), 223 pp., with… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The true first is the 1938 Gallimard (NRF) trade printing in original off-white printed wrappers, in-8 (roughly 12 x 19 cm), 223 pp., with an achevé d'imprimer dated 5 April 1938. It carries no edition/printing statement, so a clean first-printing achevé date and the absence of any later-printing line are the core tells; beware later Gallimard printings that look near-identical but bear a later achevé d'imprimer. Ahead of the trade issue Gallimard pulled 63 numbered large-paper (grand papier) copies, which are the apex first-edition form: 23 on vélin pur fil (the first paper) and 40 on Alfa (the second paper), of which 15 are hors-commerce copies. In original wrappers the trade issue is genuinely scarce (fragile wrappers; era-typical browned stock), and service de presse (review) copies exist and are prized, especially when inscribed by Sartre.

## Is this the true first?
The genuine true first is the 1938 French La Nausée (Gallimard / NRF, Paris; achevé d'imprimer 5 April 1938) — Gaston Gallimard supplied the title, replacing Sartre's working title "Melancholia" (after Dürer's engraving). The first English translation, by Lloyd Alexander, appeared in 1949 in two forms using the same translation: the US edition from New Directions, titled Nausea (New Classics series no. 35, Alvin Lustig dust jacket, 238 pp.), and the UK edition from John Lehmann, titled The Diary of Antoine Roquentin. Collectors treat both 1949 issues as the first English; the Lehmann UK issue in jacket is the scarcer. Note that some sources (including Wikipedia's prose) mislabel the New Directions edition as The Diary of Antoine Roquentin — the physical US book is titled Nausea; the Diary title is the UK/Lehmann issue. Robert Baldick's later Penguin translation (1965), also titled Nausea, is a separate, non-first text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No true book-club edition is the usual trap here; the hazards are format and printing rather than a book club. In French, the danger is a later Gallimard printing passed off as the 1938 original — read the achevé d'imprimer date (5 April 1938 for the true first) and watch for any added printing/edition line. Modern Gallimard "Folio" and "Blanche" reissues, and the 1981 Bibliothèque de la Pléiade text, are reading copies with no first-edition value. In English, the common conflation is treating a later New Directions paperback reprint (same Lloyd Alexander translation) as the 1949 first — it is not; note also that early US New Directions copies were printed in England in a slightly larger format. The Baldick/Penguin 1965 version is a different translation.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Nausea (La Nausée)* by Jean-Paul Sartre a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/nausea
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.