# Is "Bugles in the Afternoon" by Ernest Haycox a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Bugles in the Afternoon by Ernest Haycox (Little, Brown and Company, 1944) is identified by: The first book edition is Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1944, and the first printing is identified by the copyright-page statement "FIRST EDITION / Published February 1944". US-only first in book form; no UK edition precedes (a Hodder & Stoughton UK issue is recorded, including a Yellow Jacket softcover dated 1952, all later).

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first book edition is Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1944, and the first printing is identified by the copyright-page statement "FIRST EDITION / Published February 1944"
- Binding: octavo, blue cloth boards with yellow lettering to the spine and front board, 306 pp
- The Quill & Brush publisher guide corroborates the house rule — Little, Brown has stated "First Edition" or "First Printing" since 1940, adding a number row only in the late 1970s — so for this title the February 1944 line is the point
- Little, Brown reprinted from the same setting in the same blue cloth, and dealers catalogue such copies as e.g. "first edition, third impression"; a first printing must therefore show the February 1944 statement with no later-impression notice added, since the cloth and lettering alone will not separate a first from a wartime reprint
- Publisher imprint reads Little, Brown and Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ernest Haycox |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company |
| Year | 1944 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first book edition is Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1944, and the first printing is identified by the copyright-page statement… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The first book edition is Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1944, and the first printing is identified by the copyright-page statement "FIRST EDITION / Published February 1944". Binding: octavo, blue cloth boards with yellow lettering to the spine and front board, 306 pp. The Quill & Brush publisher guide corroborates the house rule — Little, Brown has stated "First Edition" or "First Printing" since 1940, adding a number row only in the late 1970s — so for this title the February 1944 line is the point. Little, Brown reprinted from the same setting in the same blue cloth, and dealers catalogue such copies as e.g. "first edition, third impression"; a first printing must therefore show the February 1944 statement with no later-impression notice added, since the cloth and lettering alone will not separate a first from a wartime reprint.

## Is this the true first?
US-only first in book form; no UK edition precedes (a Hodder & Stoughton UK issue is recorded, including a Yellow Jacket softcover dated 1952, all later). The first-thus trap runs the other way here: the novel first appeared in print as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post in 1943, so the Little, Brown 1944 is the first book appearance, not the first appearance in print. Collectors of the text in its earliest form take the Post serial; collectors of the book take the Little, Brown.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No specific book-club issue documented in the sources consulted, but contemporaneous reprints are the standing trap: a Grosset & Dunlap reprint dated 1944, a Triangle Books reprint dated 1948, and a 1945 Armed Services Edition (paperbound, oblong format, ASE serial number). Each is identified by its own imprint on the spine and title page rather than by any Little, Brown statement.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Bugles in the Afternoon* by Ernest Haycox a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/bugles-in-the-afternoon
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.