# Is "The Bird's Nest" by Shirley Jackson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson (Farrar, Straus and Young, New York, 1954) is identified by: A first printing is stated on the copyright page; Farrar, Straus and Young used no number line in 1954, so the stated printing line is the operative point and any copy without it is later. The US edition has precedence: Farrar, Straus and Young, New York, 1954.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- A first printing is stated on the copyright page
- Farrar, Straus and Young used no number line in 1954, so the stated printing line is the operative point and any copy without it is later
- Bound in red quarter cloth over blue paper-covered boards, octavo, 276 pp
- Bonhams catalogues the spine lettering as gilt while several dealers describe the same stamping as silver, so treat the exact tone of the spine stamping as unsettled and rely on the printing statement instead
- The jacket should be present and unclipped, with the price present at the front flap; a clipped flap is the commonest defect on surviving copies
- Publisher imprint reads Farrar, Straus and Young, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Shirley Jackson |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Young, New York |
| Year | 1954 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | A first printing is stated on the copyright page |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
A first printing is stated on the copyright page; Farrar, Straus and Young used no number line in 1954, so the stated printing line is the operative point and any copy without it is later. Bound in red quarter cloth over blue paper-covered boards, octavo, 276 pp. Bonhams catalogues the spine lettering as gilt while several dealers describe the same stamping as silver, so treat the exact tone of the spine stamping as unsettled and rely on the printing statement instead. The jacket should be present and unclipped, with the price present at the front flap; a clipped flap is the commonest defect on surviving copies.

## Is this the true first?
The US edition has precedence: Farrar, Straus and Young, New York, 1954. The first British edition is Michael Joseph, London, 1955 — physically a different book (black cloth, gilt-stamped spine lettering, 240 pp., octavo) and collected in its own right, but it does not precede. Jackson wrote in English and there is no original-language question.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The trap on this title is a retitle rather than a club copy. Following the 1957 film Lizzie, the novel was reissued under that title as a Signet paperback, 'Lizzie (The Bird's Nest)', with an 'originally published as The Bird's Nest' note on the copyright page. Any copy titled Lizzie is a later reprint and never the first. No book-club issue of the 1954 Farrar, Straus and Young printing was documented in the sources consulted.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Bird's Nest* by Shirley Jackson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-birds-nest
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.