# Is "Our Lady of the Flowers" by Jean Genet a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet ('Aux dépens d'un amateur', Monte-Carlo, 1943) is identified by: The true first is Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs with the imprint 'Monte-Carlo, aux dépens d'un amateur', December 1943, printed clandestinely and issued without a date on the title page (catalogued s.d.). The French clandestine original of 1943 is the true first, and the census is correct on this point.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs with the imprint 'Monte-Carlo, aux dépens d'un amateur', December 1943, printed clandestinely and issued without a date on the title page (catalogued s.d.)
- The limitation is 350 numbered copies entirely reserved for subscribers, described in auction cataloguing as the sole announced edition; the format is in-4
- The Monte-Carlo imprint is itself a fiction — the book was produced in Paris, with Paul Morihien (Cocteau's secretary) and Robert Denoël behind it — so the imprint line is the identification point, not a place of printing to be checked
- Absence of a subscriber's number on the limitation leaf, or any dated title page, argues against the 1943 issue
- Most surviving copies were issued in wrappers and have since been bound to order, so a later fine binding does not by itself disqualify a copy
- Publisher imprint reads 'Aux dépens d'un amateur', Monte-Carlo
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jean Genet |
| Publisher | 'Aux dépens d'un amateur', Monte-Carlo |
| Year | 1943 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs with the imprint 'Monte-Carlo, aux dépens d'un amateur', December 1943, printed clandestinely and… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The true first is Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs with the imprint 'Monte-Carlo, aux dépens d'un amateur', December 1943, printed clandestinely and issued without a date on the title page (catalogued s.d.). The limitation is 350 numbered copies entirely reserved for subscribers, described in auction cataloguing as the sole announced edition; the format is in-4. The Monte-Carlo imprint is itself a fiction — the book was produced in Paris, with Paul Morihien (Cocteau's secretary) and Robert Denoël behind it — so the imprint line is the identification point, not a place of printing to be checked. Absence of a subscriber's number on the limitation leaf, or any dated title page, argues against the 1943 issue. Most surviving copies were issued in wrappers and have since been bound to order, so a later fine binding does not by itself disqualify a copy.

## Is this the true first?
The French clandestine original of 1943 is the true first, and the census is correct on this point. The first edition IN ENGLISH is Bernard Frechtman's translation published by Paul Morihien, Paris, 30 April 1949 — a subscribers' edition of 500 copies in publisher's cloth with Jean Cocteau's portrait of Genet on the front board; this, not Grove, is the first English. The census's 'first trade English Grove, New York 1963' requires correction: the Olympia Press (Paris) mass-market issue of 1957 in the Traveller's Companion Series precedes Grove, so Grove 1963 is properly the first AMERICAN edition rather than the first trade edition in English. The 1943 French, the Morihien 1949 English, and the Grove 1963 American are each separately collected.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for any of these. The reprint sequence is the real trap: L'Arbalète (Lyon) 1948 is the first publicly issued French text, and later L'Arbalète printings carry a number of smaller revisions; the Gallimard 1951 Œuvres complètes text was revised by Genet and omits some of the more explicit passages, so a Gallimard or later Grove text is not the 1943 text. Any copy offered as a first must show the Monte-Carlo / 'aux dépens d'un amateur' imprint and a subscriber's number on the limitation leaf.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Our Lady of the Flowers* by Jean Genet a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/our-lady-of-the-flowers
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.