How to Identify a Farrar, Straus and Giroux First Edition

How to identify a first printing

• ERA 1 - Farrar, Straus and Company (founding, c.1945/46-1950): No number line and no consistent 'First Edition' statement. Identify a first printing by the stylized interlocked 'FS' publisher's device on the copyright page, which is present on the first printing and dropped on subsequent printings (confirmed by qbbooks/FEdPo: 'Publisher's stylized initials (FS) appear on the copyright page of first editions; no statement on subsequent printings'). Some titles instead carry a 'First Printing (year)' or 'First Published (year)' line. Absence of the device AND of any printing statement signals a later state.
• ERA 2 - Farrar, Straus & Young (1950-1953): Imprint line reads 'Farrar, Straus & Young' (for stockholder/board member Stanley Young). First printings are shown by either a first-printing/first-published statement OR the FS device on the copyright page; the imprint-line name is itself the primary dating anchor for this window. No number line this early.
• ERA 3 - Farrar, Straus and Cudahy (1953-1963): Imprint line reads 'Farrar, Straus and Cudahy' after the 1953 Pellegrini & Cudahy merger. First printings state 'First Printing (year)' or 'First Published (year)' on the copyright page, or carry the FS device. Still no number line. The 1960 Noonday Press acquisition brought in the three-fish colophon, but it appears on ALL printings from then on and is NOT by itself a first-edition point.
• ERA 4 - Farrar, Straus and Company, second use (1963-1964): After Cudahy departed, the imprint briefly reverted to 'Farrar, Straus and Company.' First printings continue to state 'First Printing (year)' or carry the FS device. This is a one-to-two-year window, so the imprint line ('...and Company,' not '...and Cudahy,' not yet '...and Giroux') dates the book tightly. Note the qbbooks cutoff line: 'until 1964, first editions either state First Printing (year) or have the FS symbol.'
• ERA 5 - Farrar, Straus and Giroux, statement era (1964-c.2001): Imprint line reads 'Farrar, Straus and Giroux'; Robert Lowell's 'For the Union Dead' (1964) is the first FSG-imprint title. Generally NO number line through this long stretch. Identify a first printing by a copyright-page statement - qbbooks/FEdPo list 'First published (year),' 'First printing (year),' 'First printed (year),' 'First published (month, year),' or 'First edition (year)' - with no reference to a later printing. If the copyright page names a later printing or omits the statement, it is not a first.
• ERA 6 - Farrar, Straus and Giroux, number-line era (roughly early-2000s onward): FSG adopted a descending Arabic number line on the copyright page. On a first printing the line includes the digit '1'; the LOWEST number present indicates the printing regardless of the line's left-to-right ordering, so a line whose lowest digit is '2' is a second printing. FSG does NOT truncate its line at 2 in the manner of the Random House 'line-ends-in-2' convention, so a genuine FSG first printing shows a '1.' In this era the number line alone is usually sufficient; a stated 'First edition' typically accompanies it.
• CROSS-ERA RULE: Bracket the era from the imprint line first (Company -> Young -> Cudahy -> Company -> Giroux), THEN apply that era's test - FS device for the earliest years, a copyright-page printing statement for c.1953-2001, and the number-line-including-1 (lowest number wins) for the 2000s onward. A stated 'First edition/First printing' with no later-printing reference is the constant thread across every era.
• IMPRINT NOTE: Titles under FSG-owned imprints (Hill and Wang, North Point Press, Noonday, Sarah Crichton Books, MCD) follow the same house conventions of their period - statement then number line - but carry the imprint's own name on the title/imprint line rather than 'Farrar, Straus and Giroux.' Apply the era rules against the printing date, not the imprint brand.

Notable points & cautions

• The three-fish colophon is NOT a first-edition point. It entered the house with the 1960 Noonday Press acquisition (Noonday had used it on its 1958-59 literary magazine, borrowed in turn from Germany's S. Fischer Verlag device, designed by Wolf Zimmermann in the early 1950s) and thereafter appears on ALL printings. Only the earliest interlocked 'FS' initials device functioned as a first-printing marker, and only in the 1940s-early 1950s. Do not treat the presence of the fish as evidence of a first.
• Do not confuse the house 'FS' device with a book-club stamp (this is the classic error made with Knopf's Borzoi device, but the same logic applies here). FSG book-club editions (e.g., Book-of-the-Month) typically LACK the copyright-page printing statement and any number line, often show a blind-stamped dot/square on the rear board, and are frequently on cheaper bulked paper. The tell is the MISSING 'First edition/First printing' line - not the presence or absence of a colophon.
• Era-boundary ambiguity: the 'Farrar, Straus and Company' imprint line is used in TWO separate windows (founding c.1945/46-1950, and again 1963-1964). Cross-check the copyright year against the imprint line - a 'Farrar, Straus and Company' book dated 1963-64 is the late reversion, not the founding-era house.
• The 1964 hinge: 'For the Union Dead' by Robert Lowell (1964) is the first title issued under the 'Farrar, Straus and Giroux' imprint. Books predating the Giroux partnership will NOT carry the Giroux name, so a 'Giroux' imprint on a pre-1964 copyright year is a red flag (a later printing, a facsimile, or a misread).
• The number line is a LATE arrival at FSG (roughly the early 2000s). For the large body of FSG titles published 1964-c.2001, the ABSENCE of a number line is normal and expected - identification rests entirely on the copyright-page statement. Do not reject a genuine first from that period simply because it has no number row. (Founding year itself is cited as both 1945 and 1946 across sources, including within Wikipedia; treat 'mid-1940s' as the safe anchor.)

Imprints

First editions also appear under: Farrar, Straus and Company (founding imprint, c.1945/46–1950; briefly again 1963–1964), Farrar, Straus & Young (1950–1953, for board member/stockholder Stanley Young), Farrar, Straus and Cudahy (1953–1963, after the Pellegrini & Cudahy merger), Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1964–present, when Robert Giroux became a partner), Noonday Press (acquired 1960; source of the three-fish colophon), Hill and Wang (history/academic/drama imprint), Octagon Books (acquired 1968), North Point Press (literary nonfiction imprint), Sarah Crichton Books (imprint, from 2004), MCD / MCD x FSG Originals (later imprint). Each generally follows the house convention above.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my Farrar, Straus and Giroux book is a first edition?

Check the copyright page. ERA 1 - Farrar, Straus and Company (founding, c.1945/46-1950): No number line and no consistent 'First Edition' statement. Identify a first printing by the stylized interlocked 'FS' publisher's device on the copyright page, which is present on the first printing and dropped on subsequent printings (confirmed by qbbooks/FEdPo: 'Publisher's stylized initials (FS) appear on the copyright page of first editions; no statement on subsequent printings'). Some titles instead carry a 'First Printing (year)' or 'First Published (year)' line. Absence of the device AND of any printing statement signals a later state. ERA 2 - Farrar, Straus & Young (1950-1953): Imprint line reads 'Farrar, Straus & Young' (for stockholder/board member Stanley Young). First printings are shown by either a first-printing/first-published statement OR the FS device on the copyright page; the imprint-line name is itself the primary dating anchor for this window. No number line this early.

Does Farrar, Straus and Giroux use a number line?

ERA 2 - Farrar, Straus & Young (1950-1953): Imprint line reads 'Farrar, Straus & Young' (for stockholder/board member Stanley Young). First printings are shown by either a first-printing/first-published statement OR the FS device on the copyright page; the imprint-line name is itself the primary dating anchor for this window. No number line this early.

Is a book-club edition a Farrar, Straus and Giroux first edition?

No. Book-club editions reprint the text but are not the true first edition. The three-fish colophon is NOT a first-edition point. It entered the house with the 1960 Noonday Press acquisition (Noonday had used it on its 1958-59 literary magazine, borrowed in turn from Germany's S. Fischer Verlag device, designed by Wolf Zimmermann in the early 1950s) and thereafter appears on ALL printings. Only the earliest interlocked 'FS' initials device functioned as a first-printing marker, and only in the 1940s-early 1950s. Do not treat the presence of the fish as evidence of a first.

What era does this cover?

This covers Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1945/46–present (as Farrar, Straus and Giroux since 1964)). Conventions changed over time, so confirm the era of your copy.