# Is "The Mermaids Singing" by Val McDermid a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid (HarperCollins Publishers, 1995) is identified by: The first printing carries HarperCollins's 'First published in Great Britain in 1995 by HarperCollinsPublishers' statement on the copyright page together with a complete number line retaining its lowest digit — HarperCollins states 'First Edition' and uses a number row (Quill & Brush), and dealers describe the first printing of this title as having a 'full numberline,' so a broken line with the low digit stripped is a later printing. The census claim is confirmed: UK HarperCollins (London), November 1995, is the true first, and it took the CWA Gold Dagger for 1995.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first printing carries HarperCollins's 'First published in Great Britain in 1995 by HarperCollinsPublishers' statement on the copyright page together with a complete number line retaining its lowest digit — HarperCollins states 'First Edition' and uses a number row (Quill & Brush), and dealers describe the first printing of this title as having a 'full numberline,' so a broken line with the low digit stripped is a later printing
- Binding: black boards lettered in silver to the spine, sewn binding
- ISBN 0002325454 / 9780002325455
- A first-issue jacket is a priced jacket with the price present at the flap
- Two caveats to check against the copy in hand: the exact number-line sequence was not confirmed against a second title-specific source, and dealer records for the UK first give 289 pages while the US issue is recorded at 276 — pagination in marketplace listings for this title is unreliable and the ISBN is the safer discriminator
- Publisher imprint reads HarperCollins Publishers
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Val McDermid |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Year | 1995 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first printing carries HarperCollins's 'First published in Great Britain in 1995 by HarperCollinsPublishers' statement on the copyright… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The first printing carries HarperCollins's 'First published in Great Britain in 1995 by HarperCollinsPublishers' statement on the copyright page together with a complete number line retaining its lowest digit — HarperCollins states 'First Edition' and uses a number row (Quill & Brush), and dealers describe the first printing of this title as having a 'full numberline,' so a broken line with the low digit stripped is a later printing. Binding: black boards lettered in silver to the spine, sewn binding; ISBN 0002325454 / 9780002325455. A first-issue jacket is a priced jacket with the price present at the flap. Two caveats to check against the copy in hand: the exact number-line sequence was not confirmed against a second title-specific source, and dealer records for the UK first give 289 pages while the US issue is recorded at 276 — pagination in marketplace listings for this title is unreliable and the ISBN is the safer discriminator.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed: UK HarperCollins (London), November 1995, is the true first, and it took the CWA Gold Dagger for 1995. The first US edition is a genuinely separate and later book — HarperCollins (New York), December 1996, ISBN 0061011746 / 9780061011740, black cloth in jacket — and is collected in America in its own right, so both editions warrant cataloguing, but the UK 1995 issue is the first. This is the first Tony Hill / Carol Jordan novel. First-thus traps: the 2002 St. Martin's/Minotaur US reissue, the Harper mass-market issues, and the later HarperCollins reissues tied to the Wire in the Blood television series.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club or reprint tells are documented for this title in the sources consulted. The practical reprint tell is the television tie-in and reissue jacket artwork, which postdates the first by years; do not publish a club point for it.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Mermaids Singing* by Val McDermid a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-mermaids-singing
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.