3 Olaf Stapledon first editions are documented on this shelf, from Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930) to Star Maker (1937) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Olaf Stapledon title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a Olaf Stapledon copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future — 1930 · Methuen & Co. Ltd.Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, published 23 October 1930 in 2,036 copies; the copyright page reads "First Published in 1930". Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-xi [xii] 1-355 [356: printer's imprint]; bound in dark blue cloth with the front panel stamped in blind and the spine panel stamped in gold. Currey's first-edition, first-impression collation adds an 8-page publisher's catalogue dated "630" inserted at the rear; not every…. Methuen, London, 1930 is the true first — census confirmed. Stapledon was British and no earlier original-language edition exists. The first American edition is Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, New York, 1931, with "First Published in America 1931" on the copyright page and an author's "Foreword to the American Edition" unique to it; it is collected in its own right but is not the first. The US edition also has…. No book-club issue of the Methuen printing is documented in the sources consulted. The reprint tells are later Methuen impressions — distinguish them by the full copyright block and by the absence of the rear catalogue dated "630" — and the many later omnibus reprints that pair the novel with Star Maker (e.g. the 1968 Dover volume), all of which carry their own imprints and dates on the title page. Do not confuse….
- Odd John — 1935 · Methuen & Co., LondonFull title 'Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest'. First edition, published 3 October 1935; small octavo, bound in blue cloth (light blue cloth with the spine lettering in dark blue). Jacket art by Eric Fraser — the celebrated 'odd' jacket. The eight-page publisher's catalogue at the rear exists in two states, dated '535' (May 1935) and '835' (August 1935). CURREY ASSIGNS NO PRIORITY between them: both were…. Census claim confirmed. Methuen (London, 1935) is the true first edition. The first American edition is E. P. Dutton & Co. (New York, 1936), collating [i-iv] v [vi] 1-282. BOTH are collected and must be named separately in any catalogue — the Methuen as the true first, the Dutton as the first American. There is no foreign-language original; the book was written in English. No book-club edition of the Methuen printing is documented. The trap here is the wrappered issues: softcover copies made up from surplus/remainder sheets of the first printing and issued some years after the hardback, with the jacket's front panel pasted to the upper wrapper. These contain genuine first-printing sheets and are routinely offered as 'first edition' — accurate as to the sheets, but they are later….
- Star Maker — 1937 · Methuen & Co. Ltd.Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, published 24 June 1937 (date per Harvey Satty and Curtis Smith, Olaf Stapledon: A Bibliography, reference A7.1.1.1); the copyright page reads "First published in 1937". Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-ix [x] xi-xii 1-339 [340: printer's imprint]; bound in blue cloth with the spine panel stamped in red. Issue here is settled by the jacket rather than by the book: the first-issue jacket carries the…. Methuen, London, 1937 is the true first and the only original — census confirmed. There was no contemporaneous American edition: US publication followed only decades later (a Berkley paperback in 1961 and the Dover omnibus pairing it with Last and First Men in 1968), so no US first competes for precedence and there is no original-language question. Star Maker is the companion cornerstone to Last and First Men…. No book-club issue of the Methuen printing is documented in the sources consulted. The documented complication is issue rather than club: Methuen reissued first-impression sheets in 1938 and again during the war under jackets bearing later flap pricing, and Satty & Smith did not locate every later jacket state, so a genuine first-edition, first-impression book can legitimately sit in a demonstrably later jacket —….
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