# Is "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (Oxford University Press, 1949) is identified by: First edition, first printing: Oxford University Press (New York), 1949, 226 pp. True first US edition, published in the autumn of 1949, posthumously — Leopold died in April 1948, shortly after learning Oxford would publish the book.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing: Oxford University Press (New York), 1949, 226 pp
- Green cloth, the front board and spine stamped (in silver) with the title and a flying-geese design; illustrated in black and white by Charles W. Schwartz
- 1949 on both title and copyright pages with no later-printing statement
- First-issue dust jacket: the price is present at the foot of the front flap (not clipped), and the flaps make NO mention of 'Round River' (the 1953 companion) or of other Leopold titles — a jacket citing 'Round River' or later titles is a later issue
- Note that green, not blue, is the documented first-issue binding
- Publisher imprint reads Oxford University Press
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Aldo Leopold |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year | 1949 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first printing: Oxford University Press (New York), 1949, 226 pp |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing: Oxford University Press (New York), 1949, 226 pp. Green cloth, the front board and spine stamped (in silver) with the title and a flying-geese design; illustrated in black and white by Charles W. Schwartz. 1949 on both title and copyright pages with no later-printing statement. First-issue dust jacket: the price is present at the foot of the front flap (not clipped), and the flaps make NO mention of 'Round River' (the 1953 companion) or of other Leopold titles — a jacket citing 'Round River' or later titles is a later issue. Note that green, not blue, is the documented first-issue binding.

## Is this the true first?
True first US edition, published in the autumn of 1949, posthumously — Leopold died in April 1948, shortly after learning Oxford would publish the book. It introduced the 'land ethic'; no earlier US or UK edition exists. This inventory row and 'a-sand-county-almanac-and-sketches-here-and-there' describe the SAME book — the full title on the 1949 first is 'A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There' — and should be treated as one title. Because Leopold died before publication, genuinely author-signed copies of the book are effectively impossible; any 'signed/inscribed' copy should be treated as suspect or as an association/other-hand inscription.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
There is no contemporaneous book-club edition of the 1949 first. The ubiquitous later forms — the 1966 'A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation from Round River' (Oxford/Sierra Club), the 1968 illustrated/enlarged edition, and later Ballantine/Sierra Club paperbacks — are 'first thus,' not the 1949 first. Any copy or jacket mentioning 'Round River,' the Sierra Club, or later added titles is a later edition or issue.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *A Sand County Almanac* by Aldo Leopold a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/a-sand-county-almanac
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.