# Is "The House of Souls" by Arthur Machen a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The House of Souls by Arthur Machen (E. Grant Richards, London, 1906) is identified by: Octavo, collating [i-iv] v-xiii [xiv-xvi] [1-2] 3-513 [514], with [515] carrying an advertisement for The Three Impostors and [516] blank; inserted frontispiece illustrated by Sidney H. The census claim is confirmed: London, E.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Octavo, collating [i-iv] v-xiii [xiv-xvi] [1-2] 3-513 [514], with [515] carrying an advertisement for The Three Impostors and [516] blank; inserted frontispiece illustrated by Sidney H. Sime
- Bound in original pictorial grey cloth with a cover design by Sime stamped in black, gold and light green
- THERE IS A BINDING STATE POINT: the first binding has 'E. GRANT RICHARDS' at the base of the spine, while the second binding has 'GRANT / RICHARDS' on two lines at the base of the spine panel — both are the 1906 first-edition sheets, so this distinguishes binding state, not edition
- The volume gives the first book appearance of 'A Fragment of Life,' 'The White People' and 'The Red Hand,' and reprints The Great God Pan
- together with The Three Impostors
- in a revised and abridged form
- Publisher imprint reads E. Grant Richards, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Arthur Machen |
| Publisher | E. Grant Richards, London |
| Year | 1906 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Octavo, collating [i-iv] v-xiii [xiv-xvi] [1-2] 3-513 [514], with [515] carrying an advertisement for The Three Impostors and [516] blank… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Octavo, collating [i-iv] v-xiii [xiv-xvi] [1-2] 3-513 [514], with [515] carrying an advertisement for The Three Impostors and [516] blank; inserted frontispiece illustrated by Sidney H. Sime. Bound in original pictorial grey cloth with a cover design by Sime stamped in black, gold and light green. THERE IS A BINDING STATE POINT: the first binding has 'E. GRANT RICHARDS' at the base of the spine, while the second binding has 'GRANT / RICHARDS' on two lines at the base of the spine panel — both are the 1906 first-edition sheets, so this distinguishes binding state, not edition. The volume gives the first book appearance of 'A Fragment of Life,' 'The White People' and 'The Red Hand,' and reprints The Great God Pan (1894) together with The Three Impostors (1895) in a revised and abridged form.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed: London, E. Grant Richards, 1906 is the true first and the first book appearance of 'The White People.' The American edition from Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1922 is a genuinely different book rather than a reprint — it runs 286 pp., drops the last two stories of the London edition, and prints 'A Fragment of Life,' 'The Great God Pan,' 'The White People,' 'The Inmost Light' and selections from The Three Impostors. It is therefore collected as the first American edition but is a 'first thus' for the contents, and it does not supersede or reproduce the 1906 London text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1906 Grant Richards edition. The principal traps are the 1922 Knopf American edition (different, shorter contents), a later Grant Richards reissue dated 1923 that is offered by some sellers under the 1906 description, and the Tartarus Press hardcover reissues (North Yorkshire, first and second printings, 427 pp.), which reuse Sime's frontispiece and board designs and can be mistaken for the period book — the Tartarus volumes are modern reprints. Grant Richards printed no edition statement, so identification depends on the 1906 title page, the Sime pictorial grey cloth, and the spine imprint form.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The House of Souls* by Arthur Machen a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-house-of-souls
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.