# Is "The Ill-Made Knight" by T. H. White a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Ill-Made Knight by T. H. White (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1940) is identified by: Putnam's Sons, New York, 1940 — first edition, first printing. US-first CONFIRMED — the census claim holds.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1940 — first edition, first printing
- Octavo (about 8 3/16 x 5 the printed price inches
- 207 x 147 mm), 291 pages, with White's own small illustrations at the beginning and end of each chapter
- Bound in lapis blue cloth pictorially stamped in gilt: the front board bears a gilt illustration of a knight in armour, sword drawn, astride a galloping horse; title, author and publisher are lettered in gilt on the spine; top edge stained red; fore-edge deckled and untrimmed
- Issued in a pictorial dust jacket — look for the price present at the front flap (unclipped) and no later-printing statement on the copyright page
- The first British edition (Collins, London, 1941) is physically a different object and easy to tell apart: red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, 296 pages, with the author's decorations, and uncommon in the jacket
- Publisher imprint reads G. P. Putnam's Sons

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | T. H. White |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
| Year | 1940 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1940 — first edition, first printing |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1940 — first edition, first printing. Octavo (about 8 3/16 x 5 the printed price inches; 207 x 147 mm), 291 pages, with White's own small illustrations at the beginning and end of each chapter. Bound in lapis blue cloth pictorially stamped in gilt: the front board bears a gilt illustration of a knight in armour, sword drawn, astride a galloping horse; title, author and publisher are lettered in gilt on the spine; top edge stained red; fore-edge deckled and untrimmed. Issued in a pictorial dust jacket — look for the price present at the front flap (unclipped) and no later-printing statement on the copyright page. The first British edition (Collins, London, 1941) is physically a different object and easy to tell apart: red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, 296 pages, with the author's decorations, and uncommon in the jacket.

## Is this the true first?
US-first CONFIRMED — the census claim holds. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1940 precedes Collins, London, 1941 by one calendar year, the second consecutive US-first in the sequence after The Witch in the Wood (1939); dealers state it plainly ('issued the year before the British edition'). Both editions are collected: Putnam 1940 is the true first, Collins 1941 the first British. Beware UK dealer shorthand — Collins 1941 copies are routinely catalogued simply as 'first edition,' meaning first British edition, not the true first; at least one specialist listing does exactly this. Wikipedia is unreliable on this title: its infobox pairs the Putnam imprint with a United Kingdom place of publication, which is wrong. This was the last of White's Arthurian novels to receive separate publication; the text was revised for The Once and Future King (Collins, 1958).

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
As with The Witch in the Wood, the Putnam 'Arthurian Trilogy' boxed set gathers the US firsts — verify each volume's copyright page rather than relying on the box or the set description. The 1958 Once and Future King omnibus carries a revised text and is not a reprint of this printing. Later Putnam and Collins impressions and modern print-on-demand reissues are reprints or 'first thus.' No book-club issue of the 1940 Putnam is documented in the sources consulted.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Ill-Made Knight* by T. H. White a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-ill-made-knight
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.