2 Virginia Hamilton first editions are documented on this shelf, from M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974) to The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales (1985) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Virginia Hamilton 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 Virginia Hamilton copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- M. C. Higgins, the Great — 1974 · Macmillan Publishing CompanyFirst edition published 1974 by Macmillan, New York. The first printing carries no reprint-history list on the copyright page; dealer copies of firsts show a First Edition designation with a 1 to 10 number line and no later-printing notation. Cloth binding; first-issue dust jacket has the original price, illustration by James McMullan, and no Newbery Medal sticker. US true first edition (Macmillan, 1974). Awarded the Newbery Medal in 1975. A reprint-history line or a number line missing the 1 indicates a later printing; book-club editions typically lack a printed jacket price; jackets issued after the award add the Newbery sticker.
- The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales — 1985 · Alfred A. KnopfStated first edition on the copyright page with a full number line ending in 1; large-format hardcover with Leo and Diane Dillon jacket art and full-page paintings throughout; original price on the front jacket flap. The US Knopf 1985 edition is the true first and 'first thus' for this collection of twenty-four retold folktales. It won the Coretta Scott King Author Award and also received a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. Later printings drop the '1' from the number line; book-club and Scholastic reprints lack the stated-first line and the original flap price.
More Children's & YA shelves: Virginia Lee Burton, William Steig, A. A. Milne (illustrated by E. H. Shepard), Astrid Lindgren, Beatrix Potter, Beverly Cleary.
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