4 Gwendolyn Brooks first editions are documented on this shelf, from A Street in Bronzeville (1945) to The Bean Eaters (1960) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Gwendolyn Brooks 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 Street in Bronzeville — 1945 · Harper & Brothers, New YorkHarper & Brothers, New York, 1945; published 18 August 1945; Brooks's first book. Collation vi, 57, [1] pp. The first printing carries "FIRST EDITION" on the copyright page together with Harper's two-letter printing code, in which the second letter denotes the year: U = 1945. Note that the Harper code records the month and year the sheets were printed, which may precede the publication date, so the month letter…. US only. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1945 is the sole first edition of Brooks's debut; no simultaneous or precedent British edition is recorded, and there is no original-language question. Later Harper and Harper & Row printings, and the collected/selected volumes that reprint the Bronzeville sequence, are "first thus" at best — the sequence's reappearance inside a later collection is not a first edition of this…. No book-club edition is documented for this title — a small first trade printing of poetry. The documented later-issue tells are the copyright page (loss of the "FIRST EDITION" statement, or a Harper code whose year letter is later than U) and the second-state jacket ("No. 2322" on the rear panel, no War Bonds notice).
- Annie Allen — 1949 · Harper & BrothersWon the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the first Pulitzer awarded to an African American author. First printing: Harper & Brothers, 1949, identified by the Harper letter code 'F-Y' on the copyright page (F = June month, Y = 1949 year) together with the 'FIRST EDITION' statement, in dust jacket. US Harper & Brothers (1949) is the true first; no prior UK edition. No book-club issue. The first printing is identified by the Harper code 'F-Y' (June 1949) plus 'FIRST EDITION'; later printings change the letter code.
- Maud Martha — 1953 · Harper & BrothersBy Harper's house practice the first printing carries 'FIRST EDITION' on the copyright page with the Harper letter date code for 1953 (year letter 'C'; an October 1953 book reads 'K-C') — confirm the exact code on the copy in hand. It collates x + 180 + [1–2] pp.; dealers describe the binding as yellow paper-covered boards over a green cloth spine (variously stated as green cloth with yellow boards) lettered in…. US-only true first: Harper & Brothers (New York), 1953 — Gwendolyn Brooks's only novel. There was no contemporaneous UK edition and no competing first. No book-club edition of the 1953 first is documented; later reissues (Third World Press, academic and Faber reprints) are separate later editions, not the Harper first.
- The Bean Eaters — 1960 · Harper & Brothers, New YorkFirst printings state 'FIRST EDITION' on the copyright page together with the Harper letter code 'C-K'. Under the Harper & Brothers code the first letter is the month of printing and the second the year (the letter J is skipped throughout); on the post-1937 cycle C = March and K = 1960, so C-K reads March 1960 and is correct for the first printing. A different code, or absence of the 'First Edition' statement,…. US only. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1960 is the true first; no contemporaneous British edition is recorded. A precision point on 'We Real Cool': the poem had a prior periodical appearance in Poetry (September 1959), so The Bean Eaters is its first appearance in book form, not its first appearance in print. No book-club issue documented for this title. The reprint tell is the copyright page: later Harper printings drop the 'First Edition' statement and/or carry a different letter code. Later collected appearances of these poems within Brooks's selected and collected volumes are not editions of this book.
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