# Is "The Swoop!" by P.G. Wodehouse a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Swoop! by P.G. Wodehouse (Alston Rivers, 1909) is identified by: First edition, first printing. UK Alston Rivers edition, published 16 April 1909, is the true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing
- Issued only in pictorial paper wrappers (orange and black, illustrated by C. Harrison); full title The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England, an invasion-scare satire
- Sold cheaply at railway stalls, so very few survived in collectible condition; among the rarest of all Wodehouse items
- Publisher imprint reads Alston Rivers
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | P.G. Wodehouse |
| Publisher | Alston Rivers |
| Year | 1909 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first printing |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing. Issued only in pictorial paper wrappers (orange and black, illustrated by C. Harrison); full title The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England, an invasion-scare satire. Sold cheaply at railway stalls, so very few survived in collectible condition; among the rarest of all Wodehouse items.

## Is this the true first?
UK Alston Rivers edition, published 16 April 1909, is the true first. There was no contemporary US book edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue. Fragile wrappers; survival in clean condition is the key difficulty.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Swoop!* by P.G. Wodehouse a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-swoop
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.