# Is "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Once and Future King by T. H. White (Collins, 1958) is identified by: The census claim holds: Collins, London, first published April 1958. UK first: Collins (London), first published April 1958, which precedes the first American edition, G.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The census claim holds: Collins, London, first published April 1958
- Collins printed its full impression history on the copyright page, and that list is the identification test — the first impression shows first publication in April 1958 and nothing after it, while Collins's own reprints of September 1958 and November 1958 and the fourth impression of March 1959 are each stated there
- All of them retain the "first published 1958" line, so the year alone proves nothing; read the whole impression list
- Binding is publisher's dark blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt, in the pictorial dust jacket; an unclipped jacket retains the price at the flap
- Contents are The Sword in the Stone (revised), The Queen of Air and Darkness (a rewritten version of The Witch in the Wood), The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind — the last printed here for the first time anywhere
- Publisher imprint reads Collins
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | T. H. White |
| Publisher | Collins |
| Year | 1958 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The census claim holds: Collins, London, first published April 1958 |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The census claim holds: Collins, London, first published April 1958. Collins printed its full impression history on the copyright page, and that list is the identification test — the first impression shows first publication in April 1958 and nothing after it, while Collins's own reprints of September 1958 and November 1958 and the fourth impression of March 1959 are each stated there. All of them retain the "first published 1958" line, so the year alone proves nothing; read the whole impression list. Binding is publisher's dark blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt, in the pictorial dust jacket; an unclipped jacket retains the price at the flap. Contents are The Sword in the Stone (revised), The Queen of Air and Darkness (a rewritten version of The Witch in the Wood), The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind — the last printed here for the first time anywhere.

## Is this the true first?
UK first: Collins (London), first published April 1958, which precedes the first American edition, G. P. Putnam's Sons (New York), published 25 August 1958 — so UK precedence is confirmed, not assumed. The Putnam is bound in blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt and is collected as the first American edition and the first US collected edition; both the Collins and the Putnam are collected. The first-thus trap runs in both directions: the constituent novels appeared separately between 1938 and 1940 (The Sword in the Stone, 1938; The Witch in the Wood, 1939; The Ill-Made Knight, 1940) and their texts are revised here, so The Once and Future King is the first edition of the tetralogy and of The Candle in the Wind, but not of the three earlier titles. The Book of Merlyn (University of Texas Press, 1977) is a separate posthumous fifth volume, not part of this edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
A 1958 Putnam book-club issue is documented and is the commonest US trap; club copies come in a jacket without price at the flap. On the UK side, the Collins September 1958, November 1958 and March 1959 impressions are routinely offered as "first edition" because the copyright page does say first published 1958 — the impression line is what separates them, and dealers who disclose "first edition, fourth impression" are describing a March 1959 book. A first-issue point ("drowing" for "drowning" at p. 226) circulates in trade listings but could not be corroborated against a second independent source and is not asserted here.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Once and Future King* by T. H. White a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-once-and-future-king
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.