# Is "The Mask of Dimitrios" by Eric Ambler a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (Hodder & Stoughton, 1939) is identified by: First edition, first printing: published London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939; octavo, 320 pages; publisher's red cloth lettered in black on the spine. True first is the UK Hodder & Stoughton edition, London, 1939.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing: published London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939; octavo, 320 pages; publisher's red cloth lettered in black on the spine
- The first printing is genuinely scarce because much of the publisher's stock was destroyed when Hodder & Stoughton's warehouse was bombed in the Blitz, and only a handful of copies survive in the dust jacket
- No first-printing copyright-page wording is consistently documented in dealer descriptions, so the imprint, date, and binding carry the identification
- Publisher imprint reads Hodder & Stoughton
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Eric Ambler |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Year | 1939 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first printing: published London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939; octavo, 320 pages; publisher's red cloth lettered in black on… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing: published London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1939; octavo, 320 pages; publisher's red cloth lettered in black on the spine. The first printing is genuinely scarce because much of the publisher's stock was destroyed when Hodder & Stoughton's warehouse was bombed in the Blitz, and only a handful of copies survive in the dust jacket. No first-printing copyright-page wording is consistently documented in dealer descriptions, so the imprint, date, and binding carry the identification.

## Is this the true first?
True first is the UK Hodder & Stoughton edition, London, 1939. The first American edition, retitled A Coffin for Dimitrios (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1939, light gray to pale-green cloth stamped in red with red top edge, price present at the jacket flap), is heavily collected in its own right under the US title — but it is not the true first, and the retitling is a classic trap.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club tell documented for the UK edition; the US retitled Knopf edition and its later reprints are the usual point of confusion.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Mask of Dimitrios* by Eric Ambler a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-mask-of-dimitrios
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.