# Is "The Ghost Pirates" by William Hope Hodgson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson (Stanley Paul & Co., London, 1909) is identified by: London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1909: octavo, collating pp. Stanley Paul & Co., London, 1909 is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed as far as the sources reach.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1909: octavo, collating pp. [1-6] 7-276, followed by 12 pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear, with an inserted frontispiece illustrated by Sidney H. Sime — the Sime frontispiece must be present
- Bottom edge untrimmed
- Binding priority per L.W. Currey: the PROBABLE first binding (Currey's binding 'A') is red cloth with the front panel stamped in gold within a blind-stamped border and the spine panel stamped in gold; copies in green cloth with the front panel stamped in BLACK and the spine panel in gold were probably issued after the red; a blue cloth variant is recorded but is seldom seen
- No edition statement or number line is present — this is a 1909 English trade novel — so identification rests on the imprint, the rear ads, the Sime frontispiece and the binding
- Note that Currey states the red-cloth priority as 'probable,' not established; do not overstate it
- Publisher imprint reads Stanley Paul & Co., London
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | William Hope Hodgson |
| Publisher | Stanley Paul & Co., London |
| Year | 1909 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1909: octavo, collating pp. [1-6] 7-276, followed by 12 pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear, with… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1909: octavo, collating pp. [1-6] 7-276, followed by 12 pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear, with an inserted frontispiece illustrated by Sidney H. Sime — the Sime frontispiece must be present. Bottom edge untrimmed. Binding priority per L.W. Currey: the PROBABLE first binding (Currey's binding 'A') is red cloth with the front panel stamped in gold within a blind-stamped border and the spine panel stamped in gold; copies in green cloth with the front panel stamped in BLACK and the spine panel in gold were probably issued after the red; a blue cloth variant is recorded but is seldom seen. No edition statement or number line is present — this is a 1909 English trade novel — so identification rests on the imprint, the rear ads, the Sime frontispiece and the binding. Note that Currey states the red-cloth priority as 'probable,' not established; do not overstate it.

## Is this the true first?
Stanley Paul & Co., London, 1909 is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed as far as the sources reach. No American edition was traced in Hodgson's lifetime (he was killed in 1918) and none is recorded in any source consulted — but this rests on absence of evidence rather than a positive citation, so it should be stated as 'no US edition traced' rather than 'no US edition existed.' There is accordingly no UK/US precedence question and no original-language question. The standing bibliographic authorities for Hodgson are L.W. Currey and Bell's Hodgson bibliography (vol. I, p. 5), both of which underpin the points above.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1909 Stanley Paul edition. The later-issue hazards are twentieth-century specialty-press and paperback reprints: any copy with a jacket bearing an ISBN, or lacking the Sime frontispiece and the 12 pages of Stanley Paul advertisements, is not the 1909 first. Green- and blue-cloth copies are genuine first-edition sheets in variant or later bindings, not reprints — do not reject them, but record the binding.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Ghost Pirates* by William Hope Hodgson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-ghost-pirates
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.