# Is "Out of Space and Time" by Clark Ashton Smith a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Out of Space and Time by Clark Ashton Smith (Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1942) is identified by: Arkham printed this once — 1,054 copies — and never reprinted it, so an Arkham House, Sauk City, 1942 imprint is the first printing; there is no printing statement and none should appear. Arkham House (Sauk City), 1942, is the true first — the census claim is confirmed on publisher, year, print run and Arkham sequence.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Arkham printed this once — 1,054 copies — and never reprinted it, so an Arkham House, Sauk City, 1942 imprint is the first printing; there is no printing statement and none should appear
- The binding is publisher's black cloth, collating xii + 370 pages, with the jacket art by Hannes Bok; the jacket should be priced at the top right of the front flap and unclipped on an unmolested copy
- This was Arkham's third book and Smith's first Arkham collection, gathering 21 tales selected by Smith himself from his Averoigne, Hyperborea, Poseidonis and Zothique cycles, with a critical introduction
- One habitual condition tell, not an issue point: the jacket spine lettering, originally pale green, ages to off-white, and jacket spine ends are commonly chipped
- Publisher imprint reads Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Clark Ashton Smith |
| Publisher | Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin |
| Year | 1942 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Arkham printed this once — 1,054 copies — and never reprinted it, so an Arkham House, Sauk City, 1942 imprint is the first printing; there… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Arkham printed this once — 1,054 copies — and never reprinted it, so an Arkham House, Sauk City, 1942 imprint is the first printing; there is no printing statement and none should appear. The binding is publisher's black cloth, collating xii + 370 pages, with the jacket art by Hannes Bok; the jacket should be priced at the top right of the front flap and unclipped on an unmolested copy. This was Arkham's third book and Smith's first Arkham collection, gathering 21 tales selected by Smith himself from his Averoigne, Hyperborea, Poseidonis and Zothique cycles, with a critical introduction. One habitual condition tell, not an issue point: the jacket spine lettering, originally pale green, ages to off-white, and jacket spine ends are commonly chipped.

## Is this the true first?
Arkham House (Sauk City), 1942, is the true first — the census claim is confirmed on publisher, year, print run and Arkham sequence. There is no competing original-language or UK first. The first British hardcover is Neville Spearman (London), 1971, confirming the census note, followed by a two-volume Panther paperback in 1974 and a Bison Books trade paperback in 2006; all are "first thus" at best and none disturbs the 1942 precedence. One naming trap worth knowing: Smith wanted the book titled "The End of the Story and Other Stories" and Derleth supplied the published title, so that phrase on a title page is not this book.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is documented and there is no later Arkham printing, so the confusions are the British and paperback reissues: Neville Spearman 1971 in hardcover, Panther 1974 in two volumes — a two-volume set is never the first — and Bison Books 2006. Facsimile jackets for Arkham House titles are sold openly by reproduction specialists, so a Bok jacket in fresh condition on a 1942 book should be examined for reproduction before anything else is concluded.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Out of Space and Time* by Clark Ashton Smith a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/out-of-space-and-time
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.