# Is "West with the Night" by Beryl Markham a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of West with the Night by Beryl Markham (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942) is identified by: The first printing is identified by the date on the title page: "1942" must be present in Arabic numerals. US true first: Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1942.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first printing is identified by the date on the title page: "1942" must be present in Arabic numerals
- This is Houghton Mifflin house practice rather than a one-off point; the Quill & Brush publisher guide records that the firm "almost invariably places the date, in Arabic numerals, on the title page of first printings, removing it on subsequent printings," and ABAA dealers apply it to this title directly, later printings having an undated title page
- Bound in publisher's green cloth (described by dealers as green or pale green) stamped in black on the spine and upper board
- The first-state jacket is priced at the front flap with the same price repeated in the box on the rear panel, and carries a War Bond advertisement on the rear flap; it should be unclipped, and as a bulky wartime book it is genuinely scarce with the jacket intact and the flap price present
- Sources disagree on collation (306 pp. versus x, 294 pp.), so pagination is not offered here as an identification point
- Publisher imprint reads Houghton Mifflin Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Beryl Markham |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin Company |
| Year | 1942 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first printing is identified by the date on the title page: "1942" must be present in Arabic numerals |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The first printing is identified by the date on the title page: "1942" must be present in Arabic numerals. This is Houghton Mifflin house practice rather than a one-off point; the Quill & Brush publisher guide records that the firm "almost invariably places the date, in Arabic numerals, on the title page of first printings, removing it on subsequent printings," and ABAA dealers apply it to this title directly, later printings having an undated title page. Bound in publisher's green cloth (described by dealers as green or pale green) stamped in black on the spine and upper board. The first-state jacket is priced at the front flap with the same price repeated in the box on the rear panel, and carries a War Bond advertisement on the rear flap; it should be unclipped, and as a bulky wartime book it is genuinely scarce with the jacket intact and the flap price present. Sources disagree on collation (306 pp. versus x, 294 pp.), so pagination is not offered here as an identification point.

## Is this the true first?
US true first: Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1942. The UK edition followed from George G. Harrap & Co. (London), dated 1943 in dealer records; it is a first English edition, not the true first, and is the lesser of the two collecting targets. The 1983 North Point Press reissue that revived the book is not a first edition of the work at all: it is a "first thus" (new introduction and format, 294 pp.) and is by a wide margin the most common misidentification, since it is the printing almost everyone owns. Any copy with an undated title page is a later printing regardless of what the copyright page says.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1942 Houghton Mifflin printing in the sources consulted. The reprint hazard is the modern one: the North Point Press 1983 hardcover and paperback, the subsequent North Point / Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Virago printings, and "The Illustrated West with the Night" are all abundant and are routinely listed as first editions on the strength of a "first edition" line that refers only to the reissue.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *West with the Night* by Beryl Markham a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/west-with-the-night
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.