4 Anne Sexton first editions are documented on this shelf, from To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960) to Transformations (1971) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Anne Sexton title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a Anne Sexton copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- To Bedlam and Part Way Back — 1960 · Houghton MifflinSexton's first book. Houghton Mifflin Boston first printing, identified by the 'First Printing' statement on the copyright page with no later-printing line. Slim octavo in quarter cloth with the white pictorial dust jacket; jacket priced on the front flap. The collection carries a blurb by Robert Lowell. A confessional debut that was a National Book Award finalist. US true first; precedes the later UK Oxford University Press appearance. Signed copies are scarce given Sexton's 1974 death. No book-club edition. The trap is later Houghton Mifflin printings, which add a printing line on the copyright page in place of the clean 'First Printing' statement.
- All My Pretty Ones — 1962 · Houghton MifflinSexton's second book. Houghton Mifflin first printing, identified by the 'First Printing' statement on the copyright page. Opens with an epigraph drawn from a Kafka letter. Issued in decorated boards with the dust jacket priced on the flap. US true first; a National Book Award finalist. Precedes the later UK Oxford appearance. No book-club edition. Later printings replace the clean first-printing statement with a printing line on the copyright page.
- Live or Die — 1966 · Houghton MifflinSexton's third book. Houghton Mifflin first printing, identified by the 'First Printing' statement on the copyright page. Won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Dust jacket priced on the flap; later states should be checked against the printing line. US true first and Pulitzer winner; precedes the UK Oxford University Press edition that followed. No book-club edition. The trap is later Houghton Mifflin printings carrying a printing statement rather than the clean first-printing line.
- Transformations — 1971 · Houghton Mifflin, BostonTwo first-printing issues were published and both are collected. The trade issue is bound in paper-covered boards with a cloth spine, collates 111 pp., and belongs in its dust jacket — unclipped, with the price present at the front flap. The limited issue is one of 500 copies signed by Sexton, bound in red cloth with a printed paper label on the front cover, issued in a glassine wrapper and a publisher's…. US true first: Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971 (ISBN 0395127211). The first British edition followed from Oxford University Press, London, 1 June 1972 (ISBN 019211817X) — a distinct edition collected in its own right as the UK first, but not the true first. First thus trap: Houghton Mifflin's 2001 reissue under ISBN 0618083435 / 9780618083435 is a modern reprint despite carrying the same publisher imprint. No book-club edition documented. The realistic trap is the second and later Houghton Mifflin printings still dated 1971-72, which are common in commerce; the printing statement on the copyright page is the tell, not the 1971 date on the title page.
More Poetry, Beat & Drama shelves: Anne Waldman, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Bertolt Brecht, Billy Collins, Caryl Churchill.
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