8 Elizabeth Bishop first editions are documented on this shelf, from North & South (1946) to The Collected Prose (1984) across 4 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Elizabeth Bishop 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 Elizabeth Bishop copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- North & South — 1946 · Houghton MifflinBishop's first book; won the Houghton Mifflin Poetry/Literary Fellowship Award. First printing of 1,000 copies (a second printing of 500 followed). Blue cloth, lettering and a silver compass rose stamped to the upper board; dust jacket designed by Samuel Hanks Bryant; [viii], 54 pp., octavo. The first printing carries no statement of additional printings; the second printing (500 copies) is so noted. US Houghton Mifflin (1946) is the true first; there is no prior UK edition. No book club. The second printing is identified by its printing statement. The 1955 'Poems: North & South — A Cold Spring' (the Pulitzer winner) is a different, later book that incorporates this collection.
- Poems: North & South — A Cold Spring — 1955 · Houghton MifflinCombines the 1946 North & South with the new 'A Cold Spring' section (seventeen added poems). First printing of about 2,000 copies, so noted as a first printing on the copyright page. Won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. US true first, and the 'first thus' for the 'A Cold Spring' poems — their first appearance in book form. Pulitzer winner. No significant book-club edition. The trap is later printings lacking the first-printing statement on the copyright page.
- Questions of Travel — 1965 · Farrar, Straus and GirouxFSG first edition, so stated on the copyright page with no additional printings indicated. Blue cloth, spine lettering, 95 pp., octavo; dust jacket. Contains the title poem 'Questions of Travel' and the Brazil poems. US true first. FSG became Bishop's American publisher; this collection precedes any UK appearance of these poems (the Chatto & Windus Selected Poems came later, in 1967). No book-club edition of note; later FSG printings carry a printing statement.
- The Ballad of the Burglar of Babylon — 1968 · Farrar, Straus & GirouxChildren's picture book, illustrated by Ann Grifalconi (woodcut designs, printed in color throughout). Oatmeal cloth boards with front-cover vignette; 44 pages; illustrated dust jacket. First edition, first printing, FSG. US FSG; first separate, illustrated book appearance of the ballad. Scarce, especially in fine condition. No book club edition.
- The Complete Poems — 1969 · Farrar, Straus & GirouxFirst edition, first printing, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1969 (MacMahon A9), an issue of about 5,500 copies. Bound in blue cloth with gilt lettering on the spine, octavo, 216 pages, in a printed dust jacket designed by Roxanne Cumming that should retain its price on the flap. US FSG (1969) precedes the Chatto & Windus UK edition (1970). Won the 1970 National Book Award for Poetry. Not to be confused with the later 1983 'The Complete Poems 1927-1979,' which is a separate, expanded book. No book-club edition; the first printing is identified by the FSG first-edition designation, the blue cloth, and the Roxanne Cumming jacket. Later FSG printings and the 1983 expanded collection follow.
- Geography III — 1976 · Farrar, Straus and GirouxFSG first edition, stated 'First printing, 1976' on the copyright page with no further printings indicated. Bound in brown cloth with the spine lettered in gilt; issued in the pictorial dust jacket designed by Cynthia Krupat, the front panel illustrated in black with books, a globe, and a telescope, and lettered in black. Contains 'One Art,' 'In the Waiting Room,' 'Crusoe in England,' and 'The Moose.' MacMahon A13. US true first; Bishop's last collection. The Chatto & Windus UK edition (1977) follows. Signed copies are scarce given her death in 1979. No book-club edition. Later printings state a higher printing number on the copyright page.
- The Complete Poems 1927-1979 — 1983 · Farrar, Straus & GirouxFirst collected and complete edition, published posthumously. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983; first printing identified by the FSG first-printing/first-edition statement with the year on the copyright page (FSG in this period used wording such as First printing or First edition followed by the year). Green cloth in an orange dust jacket designed by Cynthia Krupat. The US FSG issue (1983) is the true first of this collected volume; the individual earlier collections have their own separate firsts. No book club issue of note; later printings drop the first-printing statement.
- The Collected Prose — 1984 · Farrar, Straus & GirouxEdited by Robert Giroux. First edition, first printing, FSG; pale blue cloth boards with black spine panel and gilt titles. First printing identified by the FSG number line ending in 1 per convention of the era. US FSG; posthumous first-thus gathering of Bishop's prose, arranged in fiction and nonfiction. No book club edition.
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