# Is "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race" by Thomas Ligotti a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press, New York, 2010) is identified by: The first edition is the Hippocampus Press hardcover of 2010 (published June 2010), ISBN 978-0-9824296-9-3, bound in black cloth with silver titling and decoration, in a jacket with cover artwork by Jennifer Gariepy, and carrying a foreword by the philosopher Ray Brassier; page counts are cited as 240 or 246 depending on whether front matter is included. The census claim is confirmed: the first edition is American — Hippocampus Press, New York, 2010 — of Ligotti's first work of non-fiction.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first edition is the Hippocampus Press hardcover of 2010 (published June 2010), ISBN 978-0-9824296-9-3, bound in black cloth with silver titling and decoration, in a jacket with cover artwork by Jennifer Gariepy, and carrying a foreword by the philosopher Ray Brassier; page counts are cited as 240 or 246 depending on whether front matter is included
- Dealer descriptions of first printings report a complete number line descending to 1 on the copyright page — that number line, taken together with the black cloth binding and the 978-0-9824296-9-3 ISBN, is the working identification
- Hippocampus's own softcover of 2011 carries a different ISBN (978-0-9844802-7-2) and is not the first, notwithstanding that it reproduces the same text and Brassier foreword
- Publisher imprint reads Hippocampus Press, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Thomas Ligotti |
| Publisher | Hippocampus Press, New York |
| Year | 2010 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first edition is the Hippocampus Press hardcover of 2010 (published June 2010), ISBN 978-0-9824296-9-3, bound in black cloth with… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The first edition is the Hippocampus Press hardcover of 2010 (published June 2010), ISBN 978-0-9824296-9-3, bound in black cloth with silver titling and decoration, in a jacket with cover artwork by Jennifer Gariepy, and carrying a foreword by the philosopher Ray Brassier; page counts are cited as 240 or 246 depending on whether front matter is included. Dealer descriptions of first printings report a complete number line descending to 1 on the copyright page — that number line, taken together with the black cloth binding and the 978-0-9824296-9-3 ISBN, is the working identification. Hippocampus's own softcover of 2011 carries a different ISBN (978-0-9844802-7-2) and is not the first, notwithstanding that it reproduces the same text and Brassier foreword.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed: the first edition is American — Hippocampus Press, New York, 2010 — of Ligotti's first work of non-fiction. The book was written in English and there is no earlier UK or foreign-language edition, so no transatlantic precedence question arises. The trap is the 2018 Penguin Books trade paperback (ISBN 978-0-14-313314-8), which is a 'first thus' and not a first: it is a reissue with a new preface by Ligotti and is by far the common state on shelves today, which is why it is so often mistaken for the book. Only the Hippocampus hardcover of 2010 is the first edition; a reported earlier small-press announcement of the title could not be corroborated and is not asserted here.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is documented. The reprint tells are straightforward and largely ISBN-based: Hippocampus's own 2011 softcover (978-0-9844802-7-2) and the 2018 Penguin paperback (978-0-14-313314-8) are both later, and the Penguin is further identified by its added preface. On a Hippocampus hardcover, a number line no longer descending to 1 indicates a later printing.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Conspiracy Against the Human Race* by Thomas Ligotti a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-conspiracy-against-the-human-race
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.