# Is "The Shunned House" by H. P. Lovecraft a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Shunned House by H. P. Lovecraft (W. Paul Cook / The Recluse Press, Athol, MA, 1928) is identified by: First edition: Athol, Massachusetts, published by W. The census claim is confirmed on both counts: US only, and binding state determines everything.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition: Athol, Massachusetts, published by W. Paul Cook, The Recluse Press, 1928, with a preface by Frank Belknap Long, Jr
- Octavo, collating pp. [1-8] 9-58 [59] [60: blank]; approximately 300 sets of sheets were printed (some accounts say about 250)
- Cook's business collapsed and not a single copy was bound or issued in 1928, so the first edition exists only as sheets and in later bindings — binding state is the whole of the identification, and every genuine copy, however bound and whenever bound, is the same 1928 Recluse Press printing
- Recorded states: unbound sheets, top edge uncut, as distributed; a handful (fewer than ten) bound privately for Lovecraft's circle by R. H. Barlow circa 1935-36, one in full leather for Lovecraft; about 50 sets sold unbound by Arkham House circa 1959; and roughly 100 sets bound by August Derleth in black cloth uniform with Arkham House's other books and offered in 1961 — issued without a dust jacket, with the Arkham House imprint on the spine only
- Arkham-distributed copies carry a pasted-down Arkham House copyright label cancelling Cook's original 1928 copyright statement; a first state of that paste-down is recorded, printed on white paper with the titles in bold, and a small number of sets went out with the original Cook copyright statement uncancelled
- Auction cataloguing records the genuine sheets as watermarked 'Canterbury.' References: Joshi I-A-5
- Publisher imprint reads W. Paul Cook / The Recluse Press, Athol, MA

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | H. P. Lovecraft |
| Publisher | W. Paul Cook / The Recluse Press, Athol, MA |
| Year | 1928 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition: Athol, Massachusetts, published by W. Paul Cook, The Recluse Press, 1928, with a preface by Frank Belknap Long, Jr |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition: Athol, Massachusetts, published by W. Paul Cook, The Recluse Press, 1928, with a preface by Frank Belknap Long, Jr. Octavo, collating pp. [1-8] 9-58 [59] [60: blank]; approximately 300 sets of sheets were printed (some accounts say about 250). Cook's business collapsed and not a single copy was bound or issued in 1928, so the first edition exists only as sheets and in later bindings — binding state is the whole of the identification, and every genuine copy, however bound and whenever bound, is the same 1928 Recluse Press printing. Recorded states: unbound sheets, top edge uncut, as distributed; a handful (fewer than ten) bound privately for Lovecraft's circle by R. H. Barlow circa 1935-36, one in full leather for Lovecraft; about 50 sets sold unbound by Arkham House circa 1959; and roughly 100 sets bound by August Derleth in black cloth uniform with Arkham House's other books and offered in 1961 — issued without a dust jacket, with the Arkham House imprint on the spine only. Arkham-distributed copies carry a pasted-down Arkham House copyright label cancelling Cook's original 1928 copyright statement; a first state of that paste-down is recorded, printed on white paper with the titles in bold, and a small number of sets went out with the original Cook copyright statement uncancelled. Auction cataloguing records the genuine sheets as watermarked 'Canterbury.' References: Joshi I-A-5; Bleiler, Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1037.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim is confirmed on both counts: US only, and binding state determines everything. There is no UK, foreign-language, or competing edition, and no precedence question. The 1928 Recluse Press sheets are the first printing of the text — the story's first magazine appearance was in Weird Tales for October 1937, posthumously and nine years later. The critical nuance for buyers is the inverse of the usual trap: an 'Arkham House 1961' copy is not a reprint, it is the 1928 first-edition sheets in a 1961 Arkham binding, and Sauk City is a binding place, not a second edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition exists and none is possible. There is no legitimate reprint of the 1928 sheets themselves — later appearances of the text (Arkham House's collected volumes from 1939 onward, and modern editions including facsimile and homage printings) are wholly separate reprints with no 1928 sheets in them. Confirm the collation, the Canterbury watermark and the Cook copyright statement (cancelled or uncancelled) rather than relying on the binding, since the binding by itself proves nothing about this title.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Shunned House* by H. P. Lovecraft a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-shunned-house
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.