3 Frank O'Hara first editions are documented on this shelf, from Meditations in an Emergency (1957) to The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara (1971) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Frank O'Hara 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 Frank O'Hara copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Meditations in an Emergency — 1957 · Grove PressGrove Press first edition, 1957. The standard trade issue is in stiff paper wrappers (Evergreen, roughly 900 copies). The hardcover is a signed, numbered limited issue in green cloth (75 copies signed by O'Hara), preceded by a special issue of 15 copies that adds a frontispiece drawing by Grace Hartigan. Contains the title poem and 'To the Harbormaster.'. US true first; an early O'Hara collection. The cloth is the signed limited issue and is far scarcer than the wrappers trade issue. No book-club edition. Correction: the crux is the wrappers trade issue versus the signed/numbered cloth limited issue (with the 15-copy Hartigan-frontispiece special issue above it), not a plain unsigned 'cloth vs paperback' split.
- Lunch Poems — 1964 · City Lights Books / The Pocket Poets Series No. 19Pocket Poets Series No. 19, printed wrappers. First printing so stated/identified by absence of later-printing notice; price on rear cover. Issued in wrappers (a small number of hardbound/cloth copies were also produced and are scarce). City Lights US is the true first; no separate UK first. The scarce clothbound/hardcover state commands a premium over the standard wrappered issue. Signed copies (O'Hara died in 1966) are uncommon. Not a book-club title. Later printings noted on the copyright page; first printing lacks any additional printing statement. Confirm Pocket Poets No. 19 and first-printing copyright page.
- The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara — 1971 · Alfred A. KnopfKnopf first edition with 'First Edition' stated on the copyright page and the Borzoi colophon. Edited by Donald Allen, introduction by John Ashbery. The first-issue dust jacket reproduces Larry Rivers' nude portrait of O'Hara; it was withdrawn after objections from the O'Hara family and replaced by a typographic (plain) second-issue jacket. Large dust-jacketed volume of about 586 pages. US true first and the first collected gathering; many poems appear in book form here for the first time. The first-issue Larry Rivers nude jacket is the key collecting point. No book-club edition. Correction: the National Book Award for Poetry was shared in 1972 (with Howard Moss's Selected Poems), not won outright. Later printings drop the 'First Edition' statement.
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