# Is "The Castaway and Other Poems" by Derek Walcott a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Castaway and Other Poems by Derek Walcott (Jonathan Cape, London, 1965) is identified by: First edition, Jonathan Cape, London, 1965. UK only: Jonathan Cape, London, 1965 is the true and only separate first edition.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, Jonathan Cape, London, 1965
- Octavo, 62 pp., thirty-three poems
- Walcott's third book published in the UK. Bound in cloth-backed patterned paper boards, in dust jacket; the jacket should carry the price at the flap (priced jacket)
- Beyond the 1965 Cape imprint and the cloth-backed patterned-board binding, no separately documented first-issue textual point, state or number line is recorded in the sources consulted — identification rests on imprint, date and binding, and a copyright page should be examined rather than assumed
- Publisher imprint reads Jonathan Cape, London
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Derek Walcott |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape, London |
| Year | 1965 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, Jonathan Cape, London, 1965 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, Jonathan Cape, London, 1965. Octavo, 62 pp., thirty-three poems; Walcott's third book published in the UK. Bound in cloth-backed patterned paper boards, in dust jacket; the jacket should carry the price at the flap (priced jacket). Beyond the 1965 Cape imprint and the cloth-backed patterned-board binding, no separately documented first-issue textual point, state or number line is recorded in the sources consulted — identification rests on imprint, date and binding, and a copyright page should be examined rather than assumed.

## Is this the true first?
UK only: Jonathan Cape, London, 1965 is the true and only separate first edition. There is no separate American edition of The Castaway. In the US, a selection from the collection appeared inside The Gulf (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 1970), which combines the whole of the UK collection The Gulf and Other Poems (Cape, 1969) with poems drawn from The Castaway. The FSG volume is therefore the first American appearance of some of these poems, but it is not an edition of The Castaway and carries no priority over the 1965 Cape printing. This confirms the census note.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue documented. Cape reissued the collection in a different format in 1969 and reprinted it in 1972 and 1978; the 1969 Cape paperback circulates and is a later 'first thus', not the first edition. The other common trap is FSG's The Gulf (1970), offered where Castaway poems are sought.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Castaway and Other Poems* by Derek Walcott a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-castaway-and-other-poems
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.