# Is "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (eds. J.R.R. Tolkien & E.V. Gordon)" by J.R.R. Tolkien (editor, with E. V. Gordon) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (eds. J.R.R. Tolkien & E.V. Gordon) by J.R.R. Tolkien (editor, with E. V. Gordon) (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1925) is identified by: First edition, first impression: "Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1925", edited by Tolkien (main text and glossary) and E. UK only.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first impression: "Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1925", edited by Tolkien (main text and glossary) and E. V. Gordon (the greater part of the notes), with introduction and a linguistic appendix; approximately 211-212 pages
- Bound in original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers ruled in gilt and blind, the front cover stamped with an axe device in gilt, edges untrimmed
- A frontispiece and a further plate reproduce the sole surviving manuscript (British Library, Cotton Nero A.x)
- The load-bearing point of issue is the errata leaf tipped in after p. vi, as issued — its presence is called for in first-impression copies and ABA/ILAB dealers describe it that way
- Peter Harrington's description reads "tipped in after p. vi, as issued"
- Hammond & Anderson's descriptive bibliography records a printing of 2,500 copies, the figure repeated by Tolkien Gateway and by dealers; the count is attributed rather than independently re-counted here
- Publisher imprint reads Oxford at the Clarendon Press

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | J.R.R. Tolkien (editor, with E. V. Gordon) |
| Publisher | Oxford at the Clarendon Press |
| Year | 1925 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first impression: "Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1925", edited by Tolkien (main text and glossary) and E. V. Gordon (the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first impression: "Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1925", edited by Tolkien (main text and glossary) and E. V. Gordon (the greater part of the notes), with introduction and a linguistic appendix; approximately 211-212 pages. Bound in original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, covers ruled in gilt and blind, the front cover stamped with an axe device in gilt, edges untrimmed. A frontispiece and a further plate reproduce the sole surviving manuscript (British Library, Cotton Nero A.x). The load-bearing point of issue is the errata leaf tipped in after p. vi, as issued — its presence is called for in first-impression copies and ABA/ILAB dealers describe it that way; Peter Harrington's description reads "tipped in after p. vi, as issued". Hammond & Anderson's descriptive bibliography records a printing of 2,500 copies, the figure repeated by Tolkien Gateway and by dealers; the count is attributed rather than independently re-counted here. Later Clarendon issues are stated reprints with corrections (the 1955 issue, for example, is catalogued by dealers as "the 1955 reprint (with corrections)"), so check the impression statement on the title leaf/verso as well as the errata leaf.

## Is this the true first?
UK only. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1925 is the sole true first — there is no separately set US first edition. Two 'first thus' traps: (1) the revised second edition prepared by Norman Davis (Clarendon Press, 1967) reuses the Tolkien-Gordon text but is a later edition, not this book; (2) Tolkien's Modern English verse translation, published as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (Allen & Unwin, London, 1975; Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1975), is an entirely different work and is frequently mis-catalogued as the '1925 Tolkien Gawain.' This 1925 scholarly edition is Tolkien's collectible book debut.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for this scholarly Clarendon edition. The real traps are all "first thus": the many Clarendon reprints and corrected impressions issued between 1925 and 1966 under the identical title and imprint (the 1955 corrected reprint among them), and the 1967 second edition revised by Norman Davis, in which the introduction, notes and appendix are largely rewritten. All are routinely mis-catalogued as "first edition" because the title page looks the same — the impression statement and the tipped-in errata leaf are what separate them. The 1975 Allen & Unwin translation is a further "first thus" trap for keyword searches.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (eds. J.R.R. Tolkien & E.V. Gordon)* by J.R.R. Tolkien (editor, with E. V. Gordon) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight-eds-jrr-tolkien-ev-gordon
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.