# Is "The Law and the Lady" by Wilkie Collins a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins (Chatto & Windus, 1875) is identified by: Published in the standard three-volume format by Chatto & Windus of Piccadilly in 1875 under a contract signed in September 1874, The Law and the Lady was the first new novel Collins placed with Chatto & Windus, who became his principal publisher for the rest of his career.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Published in the standard three-volume format by Chatto & Windus of Piccadilly in 1875 under a contract signed in September 1874, The Law and the Lady was the first new novel Collins placed with Chatto & Windus, who became his principal publisher for the rest of his career
- Each volume of the first edition is bound in plain green cloth without decoration, apart from a publisher's device blocked in blind on the front cover, and uses plain, undecorated endpapers -- a notably simpler binding than the elaborately gilt- and blind-decorated green cloth Chatto adopted a few years later for its uniform 'Piccadilly Novels' collected edition
- Each of the three volumes carries the Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly imprint dated 1875
- The novel introduces amateur investigator Valeria Woodville, one of Collins's few female detective protagonists
- Publisher imprint reads Chatto & Windus
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Wilkie Collins |
| Publisher | Chatto & Windus |
| Year | 1875 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Published in the standard three-volume format by Chatto & Windus of Piccadilly in 1875 under a contract signed in September 1874, The Law… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
Published in the standard three-volume format by Chatto & Windus of Piccadilly in 1875 under a contract signed in September 1874, The Law and the Lady was the first new novel Collins placed with Chatto & Windus, who became his principal publisher for the rest of his career. Each volume of the first edition is bound in plain green cloth without decoration, apart from a publisher's device blocked in blind on the front cover, and uses plain, undecorated endpapers -- a notably simpler binding than the elaborately gilt- and blind-decorated green cloth Chatto adopted a few years later for its uniform 'Piccadilly Novels' collected edition. Each of the three volumes carries the Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly imprint dated 1875. The novel introduces amateur investigator Valeria Woodville, one of Collins's few female detective protagonists.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Later Chatto & Windus 'Piccadilly Novels' collected-edition reprints and cheap colonial reissues are bound in the more elaborately gilt- and blind-decorated green cloth that Chatto standardized on for that series from the mid-1870s onward, rather than the plain blind-stamped green cloth and plain endpapers of the 1875 three-volume first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Law and the Lady* by Wilkie Collins a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-law-and-the-lady
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.