Mother Goose's Attic

MOTHER GOOSE'S ATTIC - Vintage Children's Books

A Free online resource for Vintage Children's Book Collectors
with information on Authors and their most sought after editions.

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Vintage Children's Books

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How to recognise a first edition

We will give you a brief introduction here on how to recognise a first edition but you must take it upon yourself to read as much as you can about the subject until you feel you understand it clearly. This is probably one of the most important skills you need to learn if you are going to collect vintage children's books. Modern First Editions are easier to identify because publishers have introduced the number line this is usually found with the publishers copyright details soon after the title page at the front of the book.

The order of the numbers is of no concern to us here, just that it contains the number 1

e.g. 10 8 6 4 2 9 7 3 5 1

The presence of the number 1 ANYWHERE IN THE LINE signifies that it is a first a edition.

For Books printed before this became commonplace there are no hard and fast rules. First you must try and find out from an author's biographies when a book should have been printed. Most publishers clearly state if the book is a “second impression” or that it was “reprinted in” but unfortunately just because a book states it is a First Edition it does not mean that it is not a reprint. Some Publishers may have reprinted using the same plates as the first, sometimes many years afterwards and not added any new information to the page. If it does list other reprints it is obviously a later reprint. If a book shows no dates at all this does not make it a first edition, it to is probably a later reprint. However there are always exceptions and this is why research is the key.

To further complicate matters only some publishers enable you to tell if the dust jacket belongs to the book. Sometimes people will add first edition dust jackets to later reprints to increase its value or if first edition's dust jacket is damaged then some collectors will replace it with one from a later reprint. Again this will need research.

One thing that you can check for in older books especially, the title page often has a year at the bottom of the page, underneath the publisher’s name. If this date matches the copyright date on the next page, the book is a first edition. For instance if it states that the publishing date is 1930 and the goes on to state “1935 all rights reserved” as a copyright then it is likely it will be a later reprint. Sometimes mistakes in the text were not found and corrected until after the first printing. These mistakes often makes a first edition quite valuable, as well as help you to positively identify the edition. Again research and see if there are any mistakes that may help you identify the year of printing. Finally, some publishers specialise in only producing reprints of other publishers books and are associated with book clubs,it can save you a lot of time if you make you self aware of them.