# Is "The Road Through the Wall" by Shirley Jackson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Road Through the Wall by Shirley Jackson (Farrar, Straus and Company, New York, 1948) is identified by: The first printing is identified by the publisher's stylized 'FS' monogram (colophon) on the copyright page; per the Quill & Brush guide, that device appears on Farrar, Straus first editions and no statement appears on subsequent printings — so a copy of this imprint lacking the FS colophon is a later printing. The true first is the US Farrar, Straus and Company edition, New York, published February 1948 — Shirley Jackson's first book and first novel.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first printing is identified by the publisher's stylized 'FS' monogram (colophon) on the copyright page; per the Quill & Brush guide, that device appears on Farrar, Straus first editions and no statement appears on subsequent printings — so a copy of this imprint lacking the FS colophon is a later printing
- Bound in the publisher's original orange boards with the spine lettered in white; octavo, 271 pp
- (Peter Harrington's catalogue and independent dealer descriptions corroborate the binding)
- The dust wrapper on a first-issue copy is unclipped, a priced jacket with the price present at the front flap; jackets are commonly found price-clipped, sometimes with a hand-stamped bookseller price replacing the original — a retail mark, not a printing point
- No first-state text error is documented for this title in the sources consulted
- Publisher imprint reads Farrar, Straus and Company, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Shirley Jackson |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Company, New York |
| Year | 1948 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first printing is identified by the publisher's stylized 'FS' monogram (colophon) on the copyright page; per the Quill & Brush guide… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The first printing is identified by the publisher's stylized 'FS' monogram (colophon) on the copyright page; per the Quill & Brush guide, that device appears on Farrar, Straus first editions and no statement appears on subsequent printings — so a copy of this imprint lacking the FS colophon is a later printing. Bound in the publisher's original orange boards with the spine lettered in white; octavo, 271 pp. (Peter Harrington's catalogue and independent dealer descriptions corroborate the binding). The dust wrapper on a first-issue copy is unclipped, a priced jacket with the price present at the front flap; jackets are commonly found price-clipped, sometimes with a hand-stamped bookseller price replacing the original — a retail mark, not a printing point. No first-state text error is documented for this title in the sources consulted.

## Is this the true first?
The true first is the US Farrar, Straus and Company edition, New York, published February 1948 — Shirley Jackson's first book and first novel. No contemporary British edition has been traced in the sources consulted; the novel reached UK readers only through much later reprints (Penguin Modern Classics), which carry no precedence. Precedence is therefore uncomplicated: there is one first edition, the American, and the census note is correct.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue of the 1948 first is documented in the sources consulted. The reprint tell is the absence of the stylized FS colophon from the copyright page. Later paperback and Penguin Classics issues are reprints and are sometimes offered as 'first thus' — that phrase signals a new edition or new presentation of an old text, not a first edition, and is the common trap on this title.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Road Through the Wall* by Shirley Jackson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-road-through-the-wall
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.