# Is "The Dark Frontier" by Eric Ambler a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Dark Frontier by Eric Ambler (Hodder & Stoughton, 1936) is identified by: Hodder & Stoughton Limited, London, 1936 — Ambler's first novel, issued under his own name. The census claim stands: the UK Hodder & Stoughton 1936 edition is the true and only contemporary first — there is no competing first, because no American edition existed for over half a century.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Hodder & Stoughton Limited, London, 1936 — Ambler's first novel, issued under his own name
- Publisher's blue cloth with lettering to the spine (described as navy by one dealer and black by another), blue endpapers, 320 pp
- Identification caveat, stated honestly: Hodder & Stoughton had NO consistent first-edition statement before the 1940s, only settling on "First published in (year)" by 1976
- The 1936 first is therefore identified by the Hodder & Stoughton imprint and 1936 date on the title page together with the absence of any reprint or later-impression notice on the copyright page — no specific copyright-page statement for this title was confirmed in the sources consulted, and none should be asserted
- The dust jacket is exceptionally scarce; effectively all copies offered by the dealers consulted are jacketless, and no jacketed copy was described in enough detail to establish jacket points, so none are given here
- Where a jacket is present it should be a priced jacket with the price at the flap
- Publisher imprint reads Hodder & Stoughton

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Eric Ambler |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Year | 1936 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Hodder & Stoughton Limited, London, 1936 — Ambler's first novel, issued under his own name |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Hodder & Stoughton Limited, London, 1936 — Ambler's first novel, issued under his own name. Publisher's blue cloth with lettering to the spine (described as navy by one dealer and black by another), blue endpapers, 320 pp. Identification caveat, stated honestly: Hodder & Stoughton had NO consistent first-edition statement before the 1940s, only settling on "First published in (year)" by 1976. The 1936 first is therefore identified by the Hodder & Stoughton imprint and 1936 date on the title page together with the absence of any reprint or later-impression notice on the copyright page — no specific copyright-page statement for this title was confirmed in the sources consulted, and none should be asserted. The dust jacket is exceptionally scarce; effectively all copies offered by the dealers consulted are jacketless, and no jacketed copy was described in enough detail to establish jacket points, so none are given here. Where a jacket is present it should be a priced jacket with the price at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim stands: the UK Hodder & Stoughton 1936 edition is the true and only contemporary first — there is no competing first, because no American edition existed for over half a century. The first American edition is The Mysterious Press, New York, published 1 March 1990 (279 pp). That 1990 edition is a textbook "first thus" trap: it is collected because it carries a new introduction by Ambler in which he explains he wrote the book as a parody of the Oppenheim/Buchan/Dornford Yates secret-service thriller, and its jacket copy advertises that the 1936 novel had never before been available in America — but it is emphatically not the first edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club printing of the 1936 Hodder issue was documented in the sources consulted, and none should be inferred. Apply generic tells only: no price present at the jacket flap, blind stamp or dot to the rear board, lighter bulk, cheaper paper.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Dark Frontier* by Eric Ambler a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-dark-frontier
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.