# Is "The Leopard" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Feltrinelli, Milan, 1958) is identified by: Italian true first: Il Gattopardo, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1958, issued in the Biblioteca di Letteratura series directed by Giorgio Bassani as "I Contemporanei" no. Il Gattopardo (Feltrinelli, Milan, 1958) is the true first, published posthumously after both Mondadori and Einaudi had rejected the manuscript.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Italian true first: Il Gattopardo, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1958, issued in the Biblioteca di Letteratura series directed by Giorgio Bassani as "I Contemporanei" no
- The title page is dated November 1958 while the colophon records the printing finished 25 October 1958, and the run was about 3,000 copies, exhausted by December 1958
- The first-printing binding is card/boards with a colour illustration whose orange tint was not repeated on the reprints that followed within weeks, and copies were issued with a publisher's bookmark (segnalibro editoriale) that is usually absent
- First edition in English: Collins and Harvill, London, 1960, translated by Archibald Colquhoun, 255 pages, in publisher's green cloth with gilt spine lettering, in a dust jacket designed by Hans Tisdall with "Book Society Choice" printed on the front inner flap and the price present at the flap
- Later Collins and Harvill copies state "Second Impression" on the verso, so an unqualified 1960 first-publication line with no impression statement is the check
- First American: Pantheon Books, New York, 1960, same Colquhoun translation
- Publisher imprint reads Feltrinelli, Milan

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa |
| Publisher | Feltrinelli, Milan |
| Year | 1958 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Italian true first: Il Gattopardo, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1958, issued in the Biblioteca di Letteratura series directed by Giorgio Bassani as… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
Italian true first: Il Gattopardo, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1958, issued in the Biblioteca di Letteratura series directed by Giorgio Bassani as "I Contemporanei" no. 4. The title page is dated November 1958 while the colophon records the printing finished 25 October 1958, and the run was about 3,000 copies, exhausted by December 1958. The first-printing binding is card/boards with a colour illustration whose orange tint was not repeated on the reprints that followed within weeks, and copies were issued with a publisher's bookmark (segnalibro editoriale) that is usually absent. First edition in English: Collins and Harvill, London, 1960, translated by Archibald Colquhoun, 255 pages, in publisher's green cloth with gilt spine lettering, in a dust jacket designed by Hans Tisdall with "Book Society Choice" printed on the front inner flap and the price present at the flap. Later Collins and Harvill copies state "Second Impression" on the verso, so an unqualified 1960 first-publication line with no impression statement is the check. First American: Pantheon Books, New York, 1960, same Colquhoun translation.

## Is this the true first?
Il Gattopardo (Feltrinelli, Milan, 1958) is the true first, published posthumously after both Mondadori and Einaudi had rejected the manuscript. Two English editions of 1960 are collected and both should be named: Collins and Harvill, London — recorded by the trade as the first edition in English — and Pantheon, New York, the first American. Both carry Colquhoun's translation and both are dated 1960; month-level precedence between them is not documented in the sources consulted, so on present evidence neither should be described as preceding the other. Separate "first thus" trap: Feltrinelli's December 1969 "edizione conforme al manoscritto del 1957" prints a different, corrected text from the 1958 Bassani-edited first, with a numbered leather issue following in December 1970 and a "ventennale" edition in 1978 — none of these is the first edition despite the manuscript-authority claim.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
A 1960 Pantheon book-club issue is offered by dealers alongside the trade first American; no published point list separating the two is recorded in the sources consulted, so the copyright page and jacket flap must both be checked rather than the date alone. On the UK side, the "Book Society Choice" line on the Collins and Harvill jacket flap is a publisher's jacket blurb on the trade issue and does not make a copy a club edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Leopard* by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-leopard
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.