# Is "The Hamlet" by William Faulkner a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Hamlet by William Faulkner (Random House, 1940) is identified by: "First Printing" is stated on the copyright page of the trade first; Random House dropped the statement on later printings, so a 1940 title page with no statement is a later printing. Census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- "First Printing" is stated on the copyright page of the trade first
- Random House dropped the statement on later printings, so a 1940 title page with no statement is a later printing
- Octavo, collating [x],[2],3-421,[3] pages
- Bound in black cloth with titling and rule stamped in gilt and red on the spine and front panel, with a purple topstain (some dealers describe the same stain as deep maroon)
- First-state jacket: art by George Salter, with ten Random House fiction titles listed on the rear panel; priced jacket, with the price present at the front flap
- Dealers cite Petersen A20a
- Publisher imprint reads Random House

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | William Faulkner |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Year | 1940 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | "First Printing" is stated on the copyright page of the trade first |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
"First Printing" is stated on the copyright page of the trade first; Random House dropped the statement on later printings, so a 1940 title page with no statement is a later printing. Octavo, collating [x],[2],3-421,[3] pages. Bound in black cloth with titling and rule stamped in gilt and red on the spine and front panel, with a purple topstain (some dealers describe the same stain as deep maroon). First-state jacket: art by George Salter, with ten Random House fiction titles listed on the rear panel; priced jacket, with the price present at the front flap. Dealers cite Petersen A20a. A concurrent signed limited issue of 250 copies was produced, numbered and signed by Faulkner on the colophon, in light green patterned boards with a green cloth spine lettered in gilt and top edge gilt.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim confirmed. The true first is Random House, New York, 1940 — the opening novel of the Snopes trilogy, completed by The Town (1957) and The Mansion (1959). The first UK edition is Chatto & Windus, London, 1940; it is collected as the English first, but the American issue is the accepted true first. The 250-copy signed limited and the trade first printing are both Random House 1940 and both collected: the limited is a concurrent special issue, not a later first thus, and should not be described as preceding or following the trade.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue for 1940 was documented in the sources consulted, so the stated "First Printing" remains the decisive test. The practical trap is later Random House printings, which keep the 1940 title page but lose the copyright-page statement; copies in red cloth rather than black are recorded as early-but-later Random House printings. The rear-panel jacket count is the quickest screen — ten Random House fiction titles indicates the first-state jacket.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Hamlet* by William Faulkner a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-hamlet
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.