# Is "The Country Girls" by Edna O'Brien a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien (Hutchinson, 1960) is identified by: First published by Hutchinson, London, in 1960 — the author's first book, written in three weeks. Hutchinson (London), 1960, is the true first; the novel was banned by the Irish censorship board on publication and added to a list of over 1,600 banned titles.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First published by Hutchinson, London, in 1960 — the author's first book, written in three weeks
- The first edition is a crown octavo of 224 pages in publisher's original black boards, the backstrip lettered in gilt partially against a pale blue ground; that pale blue panel on the spine is the readiest binding check
- The dust jacket is by Jillian Willett and carries an author portrait on the rear panel, with the price present at the flap on unclipped copies
- No number line is used: the Hutchinson imprint and the copyright-page statement carry the identification
- Publisher imprint reads Hutchinson
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Edna O'Brien |
| Publisher | Hutchinson |
| Year | 1960 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First published by Hutchinson, London, in 1960 — the author's first book, written in three weeks |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First published by Hutchinson, London, in 1960 — the author's first book, written in three weeks. The first edition is a crown octavo of 224 pages in publisher's original black boards, the backstrip lettered in gilt partially against a pale blue ground; that pale blue panel on the spine is the readiest binding check. The dust jacket is by Jillian Willett and carries an author portrait on the rear panel, with the price present at the flap on unclipped copies. No number line is used: the Hutchinson imprint and the copyright-page statement carry the identification.

## Is this the true first?
Hutchinson (London), 1960, is the true first; the novel was banned by the Irish censorship board on publication and added to a list of over 1,600 banned titles. Alfred A. Knopf published the first American edition in New York — the year is usually given as 1960, but it could not be corroborated against two independent sources here and should be treated as unconfirmed. The Hutchinson London printing is the precedence copy in any case, and the Knopf is properly described only as the first American edition. Note that the Jonathan Cape imprints belong to the sequels (The Lonely Girl, 1962; Girls in Their Married Bliss, 1964), not to this title — a Cape 'Country Girls' is not the first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No contemporaneous book-club issue of the 1960 Hutchinson printing is documented in the sources consulted. The common reprint traps are the 1965 New American Library softcover and the later omnibus gatherings — the 1978 Collins collection and the 1986 Farrar, Straus and Giroux 'Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue' — all of which are routinely listed as 'first edition' because they are first thus for their own collected texts.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Country Girls* by Edna O'Brien a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-country-girls
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.