# Is "The Camels Are Coming (Biggles #1)" by W. E. Johns a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Camels Are Coming (Biggles #1) by W. E. Johns (John Hamilton Ltd., 1932) is identified by: The title page is undated — [1932] is supplied — so identification is structural. UK-only original, and the census claim is confirmed: London: John Hamilton Ltd., published Wednesday 7 September 1932.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The title page is undated — [1932] is supplied — so identification is structural
- The first collates 259 pages with line illustrations drawn by Johns himself and no colour frontispiece
- The decisive binding point is the John Hamilton "sundial" device stamped part-way UP the spine (described as half-way by the Biggles bibliographers, about one-third by dealers, and "halfway up" by Bonhams); from the second impression onward the device sits at the spine foot
- Cloth is dark: recorded as black, possibly very dark blue, by the Biggles bibliographers and as blue cloth by Bonhams
- The first has NO publisher's catalogue bound in at the rear — the second is identified by a 28-page Autumn 1932 catalogue, the third by the 16-page "Spring List of Sundial Editions 1933"
- A first-state text error is recorded by Bonhams: the spy's number misprinted "2792" rather than the correct "2742" at pages 220 and 224
- Publisher imprint reads John Hamilton Ltd.

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | W. E. Johns |
| Publisher | John Hamilton Ltd. |
| Year | 1932 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | The title page is undated — [1932] is supplied — so identification is structural |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The title page is undated — [1932] is supplied — so identification is structural. The first collates 259 pages with line illustrations drawn by Johns himself and no colour frontispiece. The decisive binding point is the John Hamilton "sundial" device stamped part-way UP the spine (described as half-way by the Biggles bibliographers, about one-third by dealers, and "halfway up" by Bonhams); from the second impression onward the device sits at the spine foot. Cloth is dark: recorded as black, possibly very dark blue, by the Biggles bibliographers and as blue cloth by Bonhams. The first has NO publisher's catalogue bound in at the rear — the second is identified by a 28-page Autumn 1932 catalogue, the third by the 16-page "Spring List of Sundial Editions 1933". A first-state text error is recorded by Bonhams: the spy's number misprinted "2792" rather than the correct "2742" at pages 220 and 224. Jacketed copies are exceptional rarities; first-edition jackets are distinguished by the front-flap wording layout, with the price present at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
UK-only original, and the census claim is confirmed: London: John Hamilton Ltd., published Wednesday 7 September 1932. There is no US edition of consequence and no competing original-language edition. This is the first Biggles book, assembled from stories first published in Popular Flying and originally written for an adult readership. Note that the publisher counted impressions as "editions", so "second edition" in the sources means second impression.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book club edition is at issue; the trap is the fourth "edition" onward, reissued in John Hamilton's cheaper ACE Series — page count drops from 259 to 220 and a colour frontispiece by Howard Leigh is added, absent from the first three. Later "first thus" reprints split and bowdlerised the stories into Biggles of the Special Air Police (1953, six stories) and Biggles Pioneer Air Fighter (1954, eleven stories), with references to alcohol and profanity removed to suit children; these do not carry the original text. The 1936 German issue, Feindliche Flieger in Sicht, is a translation, not a first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Camels Are Coming (Biggles #1)* by W. E. Johns a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-camels-are-coming-biggles-1
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.