# Is "The Skylark of Space" by E. E. 'Doc' Smith (in collaboration with Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Skylark of Space by E. E. 'Doc' Smith (in collaboration with Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby) (The Buffalo Book Company, 1946) is identified by: First book edition: The Buffalo Book Company, 1946, in a printing of 500 copies. The census is correct on publisher and year — Buffalo Book Company, 1946 is the true first in book form, the novel having been serialized in Amazing Stories in 1928 — but the rest of the census note is wrong and is corrected here: there is no Fantasy Press edition of The Skylark of Space.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First book edition: The Buffalo Book Company, 1946, in a printing of 500 copies
- No statement of edition or printing appears, so identification is by the Buffalo Book Company imprint and 1946 date on the title page together with the collation: octavo, pp. [1-11] 12-303 [304: blank], bound in red cloth with the front and spine panels stamped in gold; pictorial jacket, price present at the flap
- The jacket artist is not documented in the sources consulted — do not attribute it
- The O.G. Estes, Jr. illustrations were commissioned by Buffalo Book but were not used in this printing; they appear only in the 1947 Hadley reset, so an illustrated copy is not the first
- Imprint city is cited both as Providence, Rhode Island (dealer collations; the base of the Grant-Hadley firms) and as Buffalo, New York (some auction cataloguing, reflecting Kenneth Krueger's Buffalo involvement) — expect both on catalogue records
- Publisher imprint reads The Buffalo Book Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | E. E. 'Doc' Smith (in collaboration with Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby) |
| Publisher | The Buffalo Book Company |
| Year | 1946 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First book edition: The Buffalo Book Company, 1946, in a printing of 500 copies |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First book edition: The Buffalo Book Company, 1946, in a printing of 500 copies. No statement of edition or printing appears, so identification is by the Buffalo Book Company imprint and 1946 date on the title page together with the collation: octavo, pp. [1-11] 12-303 [304: blank], bound in red cloth with the front and spine panels stamped in gold; pictorial jacket, price present at the flap. The jacket artist is not documented in the sources consulted — do not attribute it. The O.G. Estes, Jr. illustrations were commissioned by Buffalo Book but were not used in this printing; they appear only in the 1947 Hadley reset, so an illustrated copy is not the first. Imprint city is cited both as Providence, Rhode Island (dealer collations; the base of the Grant-Hadley firms) and as Buffalo, New York (some auction cataloguing, reflecting Kenneth Krueger's Buffalo involvement) — expect both on catalogue records.

## Is this the true first?
The census is correct on publisher and year — Buffalo Book Company, 1946 is the true first in book form, the novel having been serialized in Amazing Stories in 1928 — but the rest of the census note is wrong and is corrected here: there is no Fantasy Press edition of The Skylark of Space. Fantasy Press (Lloyd Arthur Eshbach) published the sequels and the Lensman books, not this title, so no "revised Fantasy Press text" exists to compete. The book reprints are Hadley Publishing Company, 1947 (completely reset, with the Estes illustrations added) and F.F.F. Publishers, 1950 (245 pp.). The genuine revised-text trap is the 1958 Pyramid paperback, for which Smith reworked the novel and dropped Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby's collaboration credit; every 1946-1950 book edition retains the Garby credit. No UK or original-language edition precedes the 1946 US first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue of the 1946 Buffalo Book printing is documented in the sources consulted. The reprints to rule out are the 1947 Hadley Publishing reset — a different setting throughout, and illustrated — and the 1950 F.F.F. Publishers issue, identifiable by its shorter pagination; both carry their own imprints on the title page. Later paperback and trade reprints (including the 2001 Bison Books trade paperback, which restores the Estes illustrations) likewise name their own publishers.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Skylark of Space* by E. E. 'Doc' Smith (in collaboration with Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-skylark-of-space
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.