# Is "Sixth Column" by Robert A. Heinlein a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein (Gnome Press, 1949) is identified by: Gnome Press, New York, 1949, with "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page — the primary and sufficient point for this title. US first; no UK hardcover precedes it, and this is the first book appearance in any market.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Gnome Press, New York, 1949, with "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page — the primary and sufficient point for this title
- Bound in black cloth, the spine lettered in red
- The dust jacket is by Edd Cartier, the front panel showing a red atomic symbol trailing chains to each side; the jacket should be priced at the flap (price present, unclipped) on an unrestored copy
- The Gnome Press imprint address reads 421 Claremont Parkway, New York 57, and the book is stated as manufactured in the United States with no printer named
- Currey records no binding variants for this title, and the Gnome Press bibliography records a single printing of 5,000 copies, so identification is unusually clean by Gnome standards (contrast Methuselah's Children, which has multiple binding states)
- Publisher imprint reads Gnome Press
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Robert A. Heinlein |
| Publisher | Gnome Press |
| Year | 1949 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Gnome Press, New York, 1949, with "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page — the primary and sufficient point for this title |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Gnome Press, New York, 1949, with "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page — the primary and sufficient point for this title. Bound in black cloth, the spine lettered in red; 256 pp. The dust jacket is by Edd Cartier, the front panel showing a red atomic symbol trailing chains to each side; the jacket should be priced at the flap (price present, unclipped) on an unrestored copy. The Gnome Press imprint address reads 421 Claremont Parkway, New York 57, and the book is stated as manufactured in the United States with no printer named. Currey records no binding variants for this title, and the Gnome Press bibliography records a single printing of 5,000 copies, so identification is unusually clean by Gnome standards (contrast Methuselah's Children, which has multiple binding states).

## Is this the true first?
US first; no UK hardcover precedes it, and this is the first book appearance in any market. The text was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction across January–March 1941 under Heinlein's pseudonym "Anson MacDonald," so the Gnome Press hardcover is the first appearance under Heinlein's own name but not the first appearance of the text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the Gnome Press edition in the sources consulted. The standing trap is the retitling: the 1951 Signet mass-market paperback appeared as The Day After Tomorrow (original title given as Sixth Column on the cover/title page). That is a later reprint and a paperback "first thus" under the new title — it is not a first edition of the work, and copies are regularly mis-listed as such.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Sixth Column* by Robert A. Heinlein a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/sixth-column
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.