# Is "Picnic" by William Inge a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Picnic by William Inge (Random House, New York, 1953) is identified by: Issued as "A Random House Play" in publisher's gray cloth, lettered in gilt and black, with a mounted (paste-on) photographic illustration on the front board; illustrated with black-and-white photographs from the original Broadway production. US true first: Random House, New York, 1953 — the census claim is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Issued as "A Random House Play" in publisher's gray cloth, lettered in gilt and black, with a mounted (paste-on) photographic illustration on the front board; illustrated with black-and-white photographs from the original Broadway production
- Random House house practice for 1936-1975 is that the first printing carries a stated first-edition line on the copyright page and that the line is simply dropped on subsequent printings — there is no number line in this period, so a 1953-dated copy bearing no printing statement at all is a later printing, not a first
- Priced jacket / price present at the flap on unclipped copies
- Note: the exact copyright-page wording on Picnic was not seen directly in the sources consulted; the statement's presence-or-absence rule is drawn from two independent publisher-identification guides, while the publisher, year, binding and mounted-photo board are corroborated by multiple independent dealer catalogues
- Publisher imprint reads Random House, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | William Inge |
| Publisher | Random House, New York |
| Year | 1953 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | Issued as "A Random House Play" in publisher's gray cloth, lettered in gilt and black, with a mounted (paste-on) photographic illustration… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Issued as "A Random House Play" in publisher's gray cloth, lettered in gilt and black, with a mounted (paste-on) photographic illustration on the front board; illustrated with black-and-white photographs from the original Broadway production. Random House house practice for 1936-1975 is that the first printing carries a stated first-edition line on the copyright page and that the line is simply dropped on subsequent printings — there is no number line in this period, so a 1953-dated copy bearing no printing statement at all is a later printing, not a first. Priced jacket / price present at the flap on unclipped copies. Note: the exact copyright-page wording on Picnic was not seen directly in the sources consulted; the statement's presence-or-absence rule is drawn from two independent publisher-identification guides, while the publisher, year, binding and mounted-photo board are corroborated by multiple independent dealer catalogues.

## Is this the true first?
US true first: Random House, New York, 1953 — the census claim is confirmed. Inge wrote in English for the American stage and no earlier or simultaneous UK or original-language edition was located; the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award both attach to this 1953 publication. First-thus trap: the Dramatists Play Service acting edition (ISBN 082220892X) is a later separate publication in wrappers and is not the first edition despite carrying the same title and text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue of Picnic is documented in the sources consulted; the identification rule here is the printing statement plus the gray cloth with mounted front-board photograph, not a club tell. Absence of a documented club edition is a limit of the sources reviewed, not a positive finding that none exists.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Picnic* by William Inge a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/picnic
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.