2 Claude McKay first editions are documented on this shelf, from Harlem Shadows (1922) to Home to Harlem (1928) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Claude McKay 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 Claude McKay copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

Harlem Shadows — 1922 · Harcourt, Brace and Company, New YorkFirst edition, first printing carries NO statement of edition or printing on the copyright page — first printings are unstated, and any printing statement present indicates a later impression. Octavo, xxii, 95 pp.; contains McKay's "Author's Word" and an introduction by Max Eastman; over 50 poems collected in book form for the first time, including "If We Must Die," "The Harlem Dancer," "The Lynching," and "The…. CENSUS CLAIM CORRECTED — the "UK-precedence trap" is a mis-framing. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1922 IS the true and only first edition of Harlem Shadows; no British edition of this title precedes or is contemporaneous with it, and it was McKay's first and only American poetry collection published in his lifetime. The earlier London book is a DIFFERENT TITLE, not an earlier edition of this one: Spring…. No book-club issue is documented in any source consulted for the 1922 Harcourt edition. The reprint field for this title is modern (e.g., later scholarly and trade reissues), all readily distinguished by imprint and date; the practical risk on this title is the binding-variant question and the unstated-first rule being read as a printing statement's absence in a later, rebound copy.
Home to Harlem — 1928 · Harper & BrothersThe first edition states 'FIRST EDITION' on the copyright page together with the Harper letter date code 'A-C' (A = January, C = 1928), placing the printing in January 1928. It is bound in three-quarter black cloth over patterned/marbled paper boards with decorative endpapers and a violet top-stain; the scarce pictorial dust jacket was designed by Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas. US Harper & Brothers (imprint reads 'New York and London'), January 1928, is the true first — widely cited as the first bestselling novel by a Black American writer. A separately published British trade edition could not be corroborated in this pass, so the census 'UK issue followed' note is left unverified; US Harper precedence is unambiguous regardless. The date code is the key control: a copyright page lacking the 'A-C' code (bearing a later month/year code) or lacking the 'FIRST EDITION' statement indicates a later printing; the presence of both, with the Aaron Douglas jacket, marks the first.

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