# Is "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1885) is identified by: First printing of 1,000 copies, small octavo, collating [2], x, 101, [3]pp, bound in original blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt, a gilt publisher's device on the front cover, bevelled edges, and top edge gilt.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First printing of 1,000 copies, small octavo, collating [2], x, 101, [3]pp, bound in original blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt, a gilt publisher's device on the front cover, bevelled edges, and top edge gilt
- On accepted first-issue copies, the word 'of' in the spine title is set in smaller type than the rest of the lettering, and the list of the author's other works at the front makes no mention of a 'Second Series.' Dealers disagree on whether a curved-tail or a '7'-shaped apostrophe in 'Child's' on the spine marks the true first state, so that detail alone should not be used to date a copy
- The standard bibliographic references for identifying this first edition are Prideaux 14 and the Beinecke Stevenson catalogue (McKay & Beinecke 192)
- Publisher imprint reads Longmans, Green, and Co.
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Robert Louis Stevenson |
| Publisher | Longmans, Green, and Co. |
| Year | 1885 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | First printing of 1,000 copies, small octavo, collating [2], x, 101, [3]pp, bound in original blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt, a… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First printing of 1,000 copies, small octavo, collating [2], x, 101, [3]pp, bound in original blue cloth with the spine lettered in gilt, a gilt publisher's device on the front cover, bevelled edges, and top edge gilt. On accepted first-issue copies, the word 'of' in the spine title is set in smaller type than the rest of the lettering, and the list of the author's other works at the front makes no mention of a 'Second Series.' Dealers disagree on whether a curved-tail or a '7'-shaped apostrophe in 'Child's' on the spine marks the true first state, so that detail alone should not be used to date a copy. The standard bibliographic references for identifying this first edition are Prideaux 14 and the Beinecke Stevenson catalogue (McKay & Beinecke 192).

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *A Child's Garden of Verses* by Robert Louis Stevenson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/a-childs-garden-of-verses
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.