# Is "Stoner" by John Williams a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Stoner by John Williams (The Viking Press, New York, 1965) is identified by: True first: The Viking Press, New York, published 23 April 1965, 278 pp., octavo. CENSUS CLAIM CORRECTED.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first: The Viking Press, New York, published 23 April 1965, 278 pp., octavo
- Bound in quarter marigold (yellow) cloth over chocolate-brown paper-covered boards, stamped in brown; dealers describe the cloth variously as 'quarter marigold' or 'half yellow', which are the same binding described differently
- First printing is so stated on the copyright page; there is no number line on this printing, so the copyright-page statement is the operative point
- A jacket with the price present at the flap is correct for the first issue; price-clipping is common and is not itself a later-printing tell
- The book sold fewer than 2,000 copies and was out of print within a year, so first printings in jacket are genuinely scarce
- The exact verbatim wording of the copyright-page statement was not reproduced by any source consulted — confirm the statement is present rather than matching it to a quoted string
- Publisher imprint reads The Viking Press, New York

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | John Williams |
| Publisher | The Viking Press, New York |
| Year | 1965 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first: The Viking Press, New York, published 23 April 1965, 278 pp., octavo |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first: The Viking Press, New York, published 23 April 1965, 278 pp., octavo. Bound in quarter marigold (yellow) cloth over chocolate-brown paper-covered boards, stamped in brown; dealers describe the cloth variously as 'quarter marigold' or 'half yellow', which are the same binding described differently. First printing is so stated on the copyright page; there is no number line on this printing, so the copyright-page statement is the operative point. A jacket with the price present at the flap is correct for the first issue; price-clipping is common and is not itself a later-printing tell. The book sold fewer than 2,000 copies and was out of print within a year, so first printings in jacket are genuinely scarce. The exact verbatim wording of the copyright-page statement was not reproduced by any source consulted — confirm the statement is present rather than matching it to a quoted string.

## Is this the true first?
CENSUS CLAIM CORRECTED. The census gave the UK first as 'Longmans 1966'; this is unsupported and appears to be an error. The first British edition is Allen Lane, London, 1973 — eight years after Viking — and is reported by British dealers as scarcer than the American first. Both are collected: Viking (New York, 1965) is unambiguously the true first; Allen Lane (London, 1973) is the first English edition. The 1972 Pocket Books paperback, 1998 University of Arkansas Press, 2003 Vintage and 2006 New York Review Books Classics reissues are 'first thus' only — the NYRB reissue drove the modern revival but carries no first-edition standing.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition tells for the 1965 Viking printing were documented in the sources consulted; given the very small trade printing and poor sales, no contemporaneous US book-club issue was identified. Treat any copy in the Viking binding without the copyright-page first-printing statement as a later printing rather than assuming a club issue.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Stoner* by John Williams a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/stoner
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.