# Is "Tarr" by Wyndham Lewis a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Tarr by Wyndham Lewis (Alfred A. Knopf, 1918) is identified by: The true first is the Alfred A. US precedes UK: Knopf, New York (June 1918) is the true first edition by priority; The Egoist Ltd, London (July 1918) is the first English edition and carries the corrected, preferred text.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the Alfred A. Knopf (New York) issue, published 27 June 1918, in cloth-covered boards and scarce in its very rare white pictorial dust jacket
- Its text derives from an abbreviated draft supplied by Ezra Pound and carries uncorrected errors that Lewis himself dubbed 'the bad American Tarr.' The London Egoist Ltd. issue followed on 18 July 1918 in orange-brown cloth, in an edition of 1,000 copies (87 distributed gratis), and differs from the American text in numerous corrected places
- Identify by the Knopf imprint and the June-vs-July 1918 precedence; note that priority (Knopf) and the scholar-preferred text (Egoist) diverge
- Publisher imprint reads Alfred A. Knopf
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Wyndham Lewis |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Year | 1918 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is the Alfred A. Knopf (New York) issue, published 27 June 1918, in cloth-covered boards and scarce in its very rare white… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
The true first is the Alfred A. Knopf (New York) issue, published 27 June 1918, in cloth-covered boards and scarce in its very rare white pictorial dust jacket. Its text derives from an abbreviated draft supplied by Ezra Pound and carries uncorrected errors that Lewis himself dubbed 'the bad American Tarr.' The London Egoist Ltd. issue followed on 18 July 1918 in orange-brown cloth, in an edition of 1,000 copies (87 distributed gratis), and differs from the American text in numerous corrected places. Identify by the Knopf imprint and the June-vs-July 1918 precedence; note that priority (Knopf) and the scholar-preferred text (Egoist) diverge.

## Is this the true first?
US precedes UK: Knopf, New York (June 1918) is the true first edition by priority; The Egoist Ltd, London (July 1918) is the first English edition and carries the corrected, preferred text. Both are collected. The heavily rewritten Chatto & Windus edition (1928) and the revised Methuen edition (1951) are later 'first thus' texts, not the first edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Tarr* by Wyndham Lewis a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/tarr
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.