2 Frederick Law Olmsted first editions are documented on this shelf, from A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (1856) to The Cotton Kingdom (1861) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Frederick Law Olmsted 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.

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A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States — 1856 · Dix and EdwardsThe American first edition was published in New York by Dix and Edwards in 1856, collating xv, [1], 723, [1] pages plus four pages of publisher's advertisements, and it is illustrated with in-text engravings. It is bound in the publisher's brown ribbed cloth, decorated in blind, with the title lettered in gilt on the spine. A simultaneous London edition was issued by Sampson Low, Son & Co. The New York (Dix and Edwards) and London (Sampson Low) printings both appeared in 1856; American reference bibliographies (Howes O-78, Sabin 57242) treat the Dix and Edwards issue as the primary edition. Olmsted's dispatches were later condensed together with his two companion Southern travel volumes into the single work The Cotton Kingdom (1861); that later compilation is a different, abridged text, not a reprint of this first edition.
The Cotton Kingdom — 1861 · Mason BrothersThe first edition was published in two volumes, small 8vo, by Mason Brothers of New York in 1861, collating viii, 376 and iv, 404 pages. Volume I carries a folding map, 'A Map of the Cotton Kingdom and Its Dependencies in America,' bearing Olmsted's facsimile signature printed in the lower right corner. The set is bound in the publisher's green cloth boards with the spine lettered in gilt, and the text…. Because The Cotton Kingdom is itself a condensation of Olmsted's three earlier travel books, a genuine first edition must show the 1861 Mason Brothers imprint and the folding facsimile-signed map; the individual earlier travel volumes are distinct works, not variant printings of this one.

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