# Is "These 13" by William Faulkner a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of These 13 by William Faulkner (Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, 1931) is identified by: Trade first printing: no printing statement on the copyright page — later printings are stated, and a stated third printing dated October 1931 is recorded — and the table of contents carries the first-state error listing "Hair" at page 280 instead of the correct 208. Census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Trade first printing: no printing statement on the copyright page — later printings are stated, and a stated third printing dated October 1931 is recorded — and the table of contents carries the first-state error listing "Hair" at page 280 instead of the correct 208
- Bound in blue cloth with pictorial endpapers and a blue topstain; jacket designed by Arthur Hawkins
- The signed limited issue is 299 copies with the limitation leaf dated August 1931, ahead of the trade printing of 21 September 1931, so the signed issue is generally taken to precede
- In the limited issue the page numbers are set in italic and enclosed in brackets, where the trade issue prints them in roman type without brackets across all three of its printings — this is the cleanest separation of the two issues
- Dealers cite Bruccoli & Clark I:122
- Publisher imprint reads Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | William Faulkner |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith |
| Year | 1931 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Trade first printing: no printing statement on the copyright page — later printings are stated, and a stated third printing dated October… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Trade first printing: no printing statement on the copyright page — later printings are stated, and a stated third printing dated October 1931 is recorded — and the table of contents carries the first-state error listing "Hair" at page 280 instead of the correct 208. Bound in blue cloth with pictorial endpapers and a blue topstain; jacket designed by Arthur Hawkins. The signed limited issue is 299 copies with the limitation leaf dated August 1931, ahead of the trade printing of 21 September 1931, so the signed issue is generally taken to precede. In the limited issue the page numbers are set in italic and enclosed in brackets, where the trade issue prints them in roman type without brackets across all three of its printings — this is the cleanest separation of the two issues. Dealers cite Bruccoli & Clark I:122.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim confirmed. The true first is Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, New York, 1931 — Faulkner's first story collection and the first book appearance of "A Rose for Emily"; eight of the thirteen stories ("Victory", "Ad Astra", "All the Dead Pilots", "Crevasse", "A Justice", "Mistral", "Divorce in Naples", "Carcassonne") appear in print here for the first time. The first UK edition is Chatto & Windus, London, 1933, titled These Thirteen, in dark blue cloth with gilt spine lettering and a blue-green top edge, reported at 1,500 copies; it is collected as the English first but follows the American issue by two years. Note the title differs by market — These 13 in New York, These Thirteen in London — and catalogue entries mix the two freely.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for 1931. The working trap is the stated second and third trade printings: they match the first in binding and carry the same 1931 date, and are routinely offered as "first edition" on the strength of that date alone. The contents-page 280/208 error and the absence of any printing statement separate the first printing from them. The 299-copy signed issue is identified by its bracketed italic pagination and August 1931 limitation leaf, not by the trade points.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *These 13* by William Faulkner a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/these-13
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.