# Is "The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations" by Arthur Machen a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations by Arthur Machen (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1895) is identified by: Issued as Volume XIX of John Lane's Keynotes Series in 1895, collating [1-8][1]2-290 pages, with a 14-page Keynotes catalogue and a separate 16-page general catalogue dated 1895 bound in at the rear.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Issued as Volume XIX of John Lane's Keynotes Series in 1895, collating [1-8][1]2-290 pages, with a 14-page Keynotes catalogue and a separate 16-page general catalogue dated 1895 bound in at the rear
- The title page, printed in orange and black, was designed by Aubrey Beardsley, and the original binding is pictorial blue cloth with the front panel stamped in white, the spine in white and gold, and the publisher's device in white on the rear panel, with all edges left untrimmed
- At John Lane's request, made in the wake of the Oscar Wilde trial's effect on the Bodley Head's reputation, Machen agreed to remove the word 'entrails' from the description of the final scene before publication
- Publisher imprint reads John Lane, The Bodley Head
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Arthur Machen |
| Publisher | John Lane, The Bodley Head |
| Year | 1895 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Issued as Volume XIX of John Lane's Keynotes Series in 1895, collating [1-8][1]2-290 pages, with a 14-page Keynotes catalogue and a… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Issued as Volume XIX of John Lane's Keynotes Series in 1895, collating [1-8][1]2-290 pages, with a 14-page Keynotes catalogue and a separate 16-page general catalogue dated 1895 bound in at the rear. The title page, printed in orange and black, was designed by Aubrey Beardsley, and the original binding is pictorial blue cloth with the front panel stamped in white, the spine in white and gold, and the publisher's device in white on the rear panel, with all edges left untrimmed. At John Lane's request, made in the wake of the Oscar Wilde trial's effect on the Bodley Head's reputation, Machen agreed to remove the word 'entrails' from the description of the final scene before publication.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Twentieth-century reprints (including the Knopf and Boni & Liveright editions) use plain cloth bindings without the Beardsley blue-and-white design and lack the dated 1895 catalogues at the rear.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations* by Arthur Machen a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-three-impostors-or-the-transmutations
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.