# Is "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (B.W. Huebsch, 1916) is identified by: True first is the New York B.W. Unusually, the US (Huebsch, 1916) precedes the UK.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first is the New York B.W. Huebsch edition, issued 29 December 1916, dated 1916 on the title page
- Bound in publisher's blue cloth with gilt spine lettering
- The entire first printing was manufactured in the United States by Huebsch
- Publisher imprint reads B.W. Huebsch
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | James Joyce |
| Publisher | B.W. Huebsch |
| Year | 1916 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first is the New York B.W. Huebsch edition, issued 29 December 1916, dated 1916 on the title page |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
True first is the New York B.W. Huebsch edition, issued 29 December 1916, dated 1916 on the title page. Bound in publisher's blue cloth with gilt spine lettering. The entire first printing was manufactured in the United States by Huebsch.

## Is this the true first?
Unusually, the US (Huebsch, 1916) precedes the UK. Harriet Shaw Weaver's Egoist Press issue of 22 January 1917 was made up from imported American Huebsch sheets with a cancel title page and English binding, so it is a British issue of the same first printing rather than a separate typesetting. The true first is therefore American.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The Egoist Press then set and printed a genuine second edition entirely in England in 1917; that and all later printings are distinguished by imprint and date, and modern reprints carry number lines absent from the 1916 Huebsch first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* by James Joyce a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man
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.