# Is "The Housemaid" by Freida McFadden a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Housemaid by Freida McFadden (Bookouture, 2022) is identified by: There is no hardcover first edition of this title — the point of issue is the absence of one. True first: Bookouture (UK), 26 April 2022 — a digital/print-to-order paperback original, no hardcover.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- There is no hardcover first edition of this title — the point of issue is the absence of one
- Bookouture published The Housemaid on 26 April 2022 simultaneously as an ebook (ISBN 9781803144375), a paperback (ISBN 9781803144382) and an audiobook (ISBN 9781803144399), all bearing the same publication date on the publisher's own record; the paperback is a digital-first/print-to-order issue from a Hachette digital imprint and carries no conventional edition or impression apparatus, so there is no stated first edition, no number line, and no jacket
- Identification therefore rests on the Bookouture imprint, the 9781803144382 ISBN and the 2022 date, not on printing points
- The Grand Central Publishing issue (ISBN 9781538742570, 336 pp.) is a TRADE paperback with an on-sale date of 23 August 2022 per the publisher's own catalogue record — correcting the census note, which described it as a mass-market
- The census claim is otherwise confirmed
- Publisher imprint reads Bookouture
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Freida McFadden |
| Publisher | Bookouture |
| Year | 2022 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | There is no hardcover first edition of this title — the point of issue is the absence of one |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
There is no hardcover first edition of this title — the point of issue is the absence of one. Bookouture published The Housemaid on 26 April 2022 simultaneously as an ebook (ISBN 9781803144375), a paperback (ISBN 9781803144382) and an audiobook (ISBN 9781803144399), all bearing the same publication date on the publisher's own record; the paperback is a digital-first/print-to-order issue from a Hachette digital imprint and carries no conventional edition or impression apparatus, so there is no stated first edition, no number line, and no jacket. Identification therefore rests on the Bookouture imprint, the 9781803144382 ISBN and the 2022 date, not on printing points. The Grand Central Publishing issue (ISBN 9781538742570, 336 pp.) is a TRADE paperback with an on-sale date of 23 August 2022 per the publisher's own catalogue record — correcting the census note, which described it as a mass-market. The census claim is otherwise confirmed.

## Is this the true first?
True first: Bookouture (UK), 26 April 2022 — a digital/print-to-order paperback original, no hardcover. Grand Central Publishing (New York), 23 August 2022, is the first American print issue and the first from a conventional trade house; it is collected as the first US trade paperback but does not precede Bookouture. No original-language question arises — the novel was written in English by an American author but placed first with a UK digital imprint, which is why the UK issue holds priority. Both should be named.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented. Reprint tells: Grand Central reprinted heavily from 2023 onward, and later printings are identified by numbers removed from the number row — a full line to 1 marks only the first Grand Central printing, not the true first of the title. All hardcover appearances postdate 2022 (a Grand Central hardcover/collector's issue appeared in 2025) and are first-thus only; the same applies to film tie-in covers, the Sphere/Little, Brown UK bookshop paperback (ISBN 9780349132884), sprayed-edge and special-edition states. Because the Bookouture paperback is produced to order, copies printed years apart can be textually and physically identical — treat any "first printing" claim on that issue with suspicion.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Housemaid* by Freida McFadden a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-housemaid
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.