# Is "Slan" by A. E. van Vogt a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Slan by A. E. van Vogt (Arkham House, 1946) is identified by: Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1946, in a single printing of 4,051 copies — the figure given both in August Derleth's own Arkham House: The First 20 Years, 1939-1959 and in L.W. Arkham House 1946 is the true first book edition and van Vogt's first book, from the Astounding Science-Fiction serial (Sept-Dec 1940) — census confirmed on publisher and year.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1946, in a single printing of 4,051 copies — the figure given both in August Derleth's own Arkham House: The First 20 Years, 1939-1959 and in L.W. Currey's cataloguing
- No statement of edition or printing appears in the book (Currey: "No statement of printing appears in this book"), so identification rests on the Arkham House imprint and 1946 date, 216 pp., black cloth with spine lettering and device stamped in gilt, and the pictorial jacket by Robert F. Hubbell with the price present at the front flap
- Because there was only one Arkham printing, there is no later Arkham state to exclude
- ISFDB carries the jacket credit with a middle-initial variant (Robert E./F. Hubbell), so the initial is unsettled although the attribution to Hubbell is not
- Publisher imprint reads Arkham House
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | A. E. van Vogt |
| Publisher | Arkham House |
| Year | 1946 |
| True first | British edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1946, in a single printing of 4,051 copies — the figure given both in August Derleth's own Arkham… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1946, in a single printing of 4,051 copies — the figure given both in August Derleth's own Arkham House: The First 20 Years, 1939-1959 and in L.W. Currey's cataloguing. No statement of edition or printing appears in the book (Currey: "No statement of printing appears in this book"), so identification rests on the Arkham House imprint and 1946 date, 216 pp., black cloth with spine lettering and device stamped in gilt, and the pictorial jacket by Robert F. Hubbell with the price present at the front flap. Because there was only one Arkham printing, there is no later Arkham state to exclude. ISFDB carries the jacket credit with a middle-initial variant (Robert E./F. Hubbell), so the initial is unsettled although the attribution to Hubbell is not.

## Is this the true first?
Arkham House 1946 is the true first book edition and van Vogt's first book, from the Astounding Science-Fiction serial (Sept-Dec 1940) — census confirmed on publisher and year. The census note's claim that this is "one of only two SF novels Arkham House ever issued" is NOT supported: Derleth's own Arkham bibliography calls Slan "the first Arkham House science-fiction novel," and The Torch by Jack Bechdolt (1948), sometimes cited as the second, was a Prime Press book, not an Arkham House one. First British edition: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1953 (black cloth, silver titling, 247 pp.). First-thus trap: Simon & Schuster, New York, 1951 is the first major-trade-house edition and carries a substantially revised text (chapter 18 heavily rewritten) — a landmark issue, but not the first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue and no second printing of the Arkham House edition are documented in the sources consulted; the Arkham text had one printing only. The reprint tells that matter are downstream: the 1951 Simon & Schuster revised text and the later paperback lines, all of which carry their own publishers' imprints on the title page rather than Arkham's.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Slan* by A. E. van Vogt a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/slan
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.