# Is "A Red Record" by Ida B. Wells a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of A Red Record by Ida B. Wells (Donohue & Henneberry, 1895) is identified by: The first edition, subtitled 'Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894,' was printed in Chicago by Donohue & Henneberry in 1895 and collates 100 pages (25 cm).

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first edition, subtitled 'Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894,' was printed in Chicago by Donohue & Henneberry in 1895 and collates 100 pages (25 cm)
- It opens with a letter of endorsement from Frederick Douglass beginning 'Dear Miss Wells: Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against colored people in the South,' signed from his home, Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C. Wells compiled her statistics chiefly from mainstream white daily newspapers rather than the Black press, a methodological choice she states explicitly in the text as a way to preempt charges of bias
- Publisher imprint reads Donohue & Henneberry
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ida B. Wells |
| Publisher | Donohue & Henneberry |
| Year | 1895 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first edition, subtitled 'Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894,' was printed in… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
The first edition, subtitled 'Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894,' was printed in Chicago by Donohue & Henneberry in 1895 and collates 100 pages (25 cm). It opens with a letter of endorsement from Frederick Douglass beginning 'Dear Miss Wells: Let me give you thanks for your faithful paper on the lynch abomination now generally practiced against colored people in the South,' signed from his home, Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C. Wells compiled her statistics chiefly from mainstream white daily newspapers rather than the Black press, a methodological choice she states explicitly in the text as a way to preempt charges of bias.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Most readers today encounter A Red Record through 20th-century anthology reprints, such as the Jacqueline Jones Royster edition Southern Horrors and Other Writings (1997); those composite modern texts are not the 1895 Donohue & Henneberry first edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *A Red Record* by Ida B. Wells a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/a-red-record
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.