# Is "Pavane" by Keith Roberts a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Pavane by Keith Roberts (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968) is identified by: First edition, first impression: London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968, hardback in dustwrapper, with cover art by Keith Roberts himself — the author was also a working illustrator, and his own jacket art is a distinguishing feature of the UK first. Census claim CONFIRMED in full.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first impression: London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968, hardback in dustwrapper, with cover art by Keith Roberts himself — the author was also a working illustrator, and his own jacket art is a distinguishing feature of the UK first
- The decisive point is contents, not a printing statement: the Hart-Davis first collects the prologue, five measures and the coda, and OMITS "The White Boat." There is no number line; the copyright page carries the 1968 Hart-Davis imprint with no additional impression statement
- The first US edition — Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York, 1968 — is octavo, cloth, in a priced jacket, and ADDS "The White Boat," expanding the contents to six measures
- Doubleday's own copyright-page first-printing convention was not corroborated against two sources for this specific title and is therefore not asserted; identify the US issue by the Doubleday 1968 imprint and the presence of "The White Boat" in the contents
- Publisher imprint reads Rupert Hart-Davis
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Keith Roberts |
| Publisher | Rupert Hart-Davis |
| Year | 1968 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first impression: London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968, hardback in dustwrapper, with cover art by Keith Roberts himself — the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first impression: London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968, hardback in dustwrapper, with cover art by Keith Roberts himself — the author was also a working illustrator, and his own jacket art is a distinguishing feature of the UK first. The decisive point is contents, not a printing statement: the Hart-Davis first collects the prologue, five measures and the coda, and OMITS "The White Boat." There is no number line; the copyright page carries the 1968 Hart-Davis imprint with no additional impression statement. The first US edition — Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York, 1968 — is octavo, cloth, in a priced jacket, and ADDS "The White Boat," expanding the contents to six measures. Doubleday's own copyright-page first-printing convention was not corroborated against two sources for this specific title and is therefore not asserted; identify the US issue by the Doubleday 1968 imprint and the presence of "The White Boat" in the contents.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim CONFIRMED in full. Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1968 is the true first. The Doubleday (Garden City, New York) 1968 first American edition is not a reprint of it — L.W. Currey (ABAA/ILAB) and John W. Knott, Jr., Bookseller (ABAA/ILAB) both catalogue the Doubleday as the first US edition and both note that it adds "The White Boat," which the UK edition does not contain. Both editions are collected and both should be named: Hart-Davis is the true first; Doubleday is the first appearance of the expanded six-measure text now standard. Collectors wanting the complete text and collectors wanting the true first are therefore buying two different books — an unusually clean example of contents differing between firsts.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1968 Hart-Davis printing in the sources consulted. For the Doubleday edition, Science Fiction Book Club issues are the standard trap on American SF hardcovers of this period and are identified by the absence of a price at the jacket flap together with the club's blind-stamp or dot to the rear board; that general tell was not specifically corroborated for this title, so confirm against the copy in hand. The Hart-Davis edition is described in the trade as uncommon.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Pavane* by Keith Roberts a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/pavane
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.