# Is "On Photography" by Susan Sontag a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of On Photography by Susan Sontag (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977) is identified by: The true first is the Farrar, Straus and Giroux issue of 1977, 207 pp., bound in grey cloth with white lettering to the spine and issued in a pictorial dust jacket designed by Jacqueline Schuman. US precedence: Sontag was American and the FSG (New York) issue of 1977 is the true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the Farrar, Straus and Giroux issue of 1977, 207 pp., bound in grey cloth with white lettering to the spine and issued in a pictorial dust jacket designed by Jacqueline Schuman
- The copyright page bears a 'Copyright (c) 1973' notice (the essays first ran in the New York Review of Books, 1973-1977) together with the FSG first-printing designation
- FSG did not use a number line in this period, so later printings are identified by an explicit 'second/third printing' statement and the first printing carries none
- Multiple independent dealers (Riverrun, Between the Covers, Type Punch Matrix, Raptis) uniformly catalogue the 1977 grey-cloth / Schuman-jacket copy as the first edition, first printing
- Publisher imprint reads Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Susan Sontag |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Year | 1977 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is the Farrar, Straus and Giroux issue of 1977, 207 pp., bound in grey cloth with white lettering to the spine and issued in… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The true first is the Farrar, Straus and Giroux issue of 1977, 207 pp., bound in grey cloth with white lettering to the spine and issued in a pictorial dust jacket designed by Jacqueline Schuman. The copyright page bears a 'Copyright (c) 1973' notice (the essays first ran in the New York Review of Books, 1973-1977) together with the FSG first-printing designation; FSG did not use a number line in this period, so later printings are identified by an explicit 'second/third printing' statement and the first printing carries none. Multiple independent dealers (Riverrun, Between the Covers, Type Punch Matrix, Raptis) uniformly catalogue the 1977 grey-cloth / Schuman-jacket copy as the first edition, first printing.

## Is this the true first?
US precedence: Sontag was American and the FSG (New York) issue of 1977 is the true first. The UK edition (Allen Lane, London) followed in 1978 and is a later printing / 'first thus', not the true first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is a common trap for the true first. The title was heavily reprinted by FSG and later reset as a Picador/FSG trade paperback (ISBN 0-312-42009-9); all are identified as reprints by later printing statements or a new ISBN.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *On Photography* by Susan Sontag a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/on-photography
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.