6 Henry David Thoreau first editions are documented on this shelf, from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) to Cape Cod (1865) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Henry David Thoreau 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 Henry David Thoreau copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers — 1849 · James Munroe & Co.Thoreau's first book, published at his own expense by James Munroe & Co., Boston, 1849, in an edition of 1,000 copies. First issue has the original 1849 Munroe title leaf. Famous for poor sales: Munroe returned 706 unsold copies to Thoreau in 1853 (256 bound, 450 in sheets). In 1862 Ticknor & Fields acquired 145 bound copies and the 450 sheets and reissued them with a cancel title page — the second issue. The…. US true first, 1849, Munroe. The 1862 reissue (remaindered copies and sheets fitted with a Ticknor & Fields cancel title) is a later state; first issue is identified by the original, un-cancelled 1849 Munroe title page. The 1862 Ticknor & Fields cancel-title reissue and later reprints postdate the first; first issue is identified by the integral, un-cancelled 1849 Munroe title leaf.
- Resistance to Civil Government ('Civil Disobedience,' in Aesthetic Papers) — 1849 · Aesthetic Papers, edited by Elizabeth P. Peabody — Boston: The Editor; New York: G. P. PutnamThe essay first appeared in print at pages 189-211 of Aesthetic Papers, a single-volume miscellany edited by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, printed by John Wilson of Boston and running 248 pages. The title-page imprint reads "Boston: The Editor" (Peabody herself, trading from her West Street rooms) with a secondary New York imprint for G. P. Putnam — so the census's shorthand "Elizabeth P. Peabody, Boston" is right in…. No UK edition and no precedence contest: this is an American-only first appearance, and the true first of the text is the periodical appearance in Aesthetic Papers (1849), not a separate book. The census claim is confirmed. Note the title trap the census correctly flags — in 1849 the essay is titled "Resistance to Civil Government"; the now-familiar title "Civil Disobedience" appears only posthumously in A Yankee…. No book-club issue exists for an 1849 periodical. The reprint tell that matters is the 1866 A Yankee in Canada collection, which is a first-thus for the title "Civil Disobedience" but a reprint of the text; later Ticknor and Fields/Houghton collected editions and the many twentieth-century facsimiles and print-on-demand reissues of Aesthetic Papers (paperback reprints carrying modern ISBNs) are the common traps.….
- Walden; or, Life in the Woods — 1854 · Ticknor and FieldsFirst edition, first printing — a single print run of 2,000 copies (published August 9, 1854); because there was only one 1854 printing, no number line or later-printing code applies. The title page carries the Boston 'Ticknor and Fields' imprint dated M DCCC LIV (1854) and a wood-engraved title-page vignette of Thoreau's cabin after a sketch by his sister Sophia E. Thoreau (engraved by Baker & Andrew). The key…. US Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1854 is the true first, and because only one printing of 2,000 copies was made, every genuine 1854-imprint copy is first edition/first printing. The inserted rear ad catalogues are dated variously (April 1854 through September 1855) and do NOT establish priority — a later ad date does not make a copy 'later,' and using the ad date as a first-issue test is a common error. Later…. No 19th-century book-club edition exists. Modern facsimiles, the Limited Editions Club and Heritage Press printings, and the countless later reprints are obvious by paper, binding, added introductions, and a reproduced (or absent) Walden Pond map — none carry the 1854 Ticknor and Fields imprint (M DCCC LIV) with the inserted period advertisements sewn at the rear.
- Excursions — 1863 · Ticknor and FieldsFirst and only 1863 printing, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, limited to 1,558 copies printed (1,500 bound up), 319pp, bound in green cloth. Carries a steel-engraved frontispiece portrait of Thoreau after the Samuel Worcester Rowse crayon sketch, with a tissue guard -- the first published likeness of Thoreau in any book. Edited posthumously by Thoreau's sister Sophia, with a prefatory "Biographical Sketch"….
- The Maine Woods — 1864 · Ticknor and FieldsFirst edition, Ticknor and Fields, Boston, 1864 (published posthumously, edited by William Ellery Channing and Sophia Thoreau); BAL 20113. The key first-printing point is the list of Thoreau's books on page [ii]: it is PRICED in the first printing and unpriced in the second. Copies appear in several cloth colors (green, purple, brown) among multiple cloth grains, with no established priority between binding…. True first US (Ticknor and Fields, 1864), one of Thoreau's posthumous works. First-printing status is set by the priced list of his books on page [ii] (per BAL); binding color and stamping variants do not establish precedence. Later Ticknor/Houghton printings and the Riverside and Walden editions are reprints; confirm the 1864 imprint and the priced page-[ii] list. An inserted catalogue dated December 1864 is of no bibliographical significance. No book-club issue of the period.
- Cape Cod — 1865 · Ticknor and FieldsFirst edition, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865, in an edition BAL records as 2,040 copies (Borst gives 2,000); collates [i-viii],1-252pp, approximately 5 x 7.5 inches. Edited posthumously by Ellery Channing and Thoreau's sister Sophia. The first edition was issued concurrently in at least five cloth bindings (BAL's grains Z, P, BD, EC, and TR) in green, purple, and brown, with or without a wreath stamped on the….
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