# Is "The Owl Service" by Alan Garner a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Owl Service by Alan Garner (Collins, 1967) is identified by: First edition, first impression: London, Collins, 1967. UK Collins (London), 1967 is the true first and precedes all others; it won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first impression: London, Collins, 1967
- Collins of this period placed no edition statement on its firsts — the copyright page carries the first-publication date and no impression or reprint line, and that absence is the primary test; later impressions add a line ('Reprinted 1968', 'Second impression')
- Original cloth lettered at the spine, in the pictorial dust jacket designed by Kenneth Farnhill; the jacket should be unclipped with the price present at the flap
- Dealer reports of the cloth conflict: copies catalogued as the first printing are described as orange-red cloth lettered in gilt, while a copy catalogued as the second impression is described as blue-grey cloth lettered in silver
- Because each colour rests on a single dealer description, cloth colour must not be relied on alone — confirm by the absence of a reprint line on the copyright page
- Publisher imprint reads Collins
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Alan Garner |
| Publisher | Collins |
| Year | 1967 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | First edition, first impression: London, Collins, 1967 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first impression: London, Collins, 1967. Collins of this period placed no edition statement on its firsts — the copyright page carries the first-publication date and no impression or reprint line, and that absence is the primary test; later impressions add a line ('Reprinted 1968', 'Second impression'). Original cloth lettered at the spine, in the pictorial dust jacket designed by Kenneth Farnhill; the jacket should be unclipped with the price present at the flap. Dealer reports of the cloth conflict: copies catalogued as the first printing are described as orange-red cloth lettered in gilt, while a copy catalogued as the second impression is described as blue-grey cloth lettered in silver. Because each colour rests on a single dealer description, cloth colour must not be relied on alone — confirm by the absence of a reprint line on the copyright page.

## Is this the true first?
UK Collins (London), 1967 is the true first and precedes all others; it won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. The first American edition is Henry Z. Walck, Inc., New York, 1968, which states 'First American edition 1968' on the copyright page; it is bound in black cloth with a silver-stamped circular vignette to the front board and silver-lettered spine, in a jacket designed by Janet Halverson. Both the Collins and the Walck are collected, but the Walck is a separate later edition, not the true first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented in the sources consulted. The commonest traps are later Collins impressions, which retain the 1967 first-publication date but add a reprint or impression line, and reissues following the 1969 ITV serialisation. Price-clipped and facsimile jackets are the other frequent substitution on the UK first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Owl Service* by Alan Garner a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-owl-service
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.