# Is "Commerce of the Prairies" by Josiah Gregg a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Commerce of the Prairies by Josiah Gregg (Henry G. Langley, 1844) is identified by: Langley, 1844, two 12mo volumes (roughly xvi, [17]-320 and viii, [9]-318 pages), illustrated with two steel-engraved frontispieces, four wood-engraved plates, and two engraved maps, including Gregg's own large folding map of the Indian Territory, northern Texas, and New Mexico.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- New York: Henry G. Langley, 1844, two 12mo volumes (roughly xvi, [17]-320 and viii, [9]-318 pages), illustrated with two steel-engraved frontispieces, four wood-engraved plates, and two engraved maps, including Gregg's own large folding map of the Indian Territory, northern Texas, and New Mexico
- The true first issue carries "New York" alone in the Langley imprint on the volume-one title page; a second issue of the same year adds a London co-imprint alongside Langley's on that same title page
- First-issue sets were bound in the publisher's brown pictorial cloth, stamped in gilt and blind
- Gregg's memoir of the Santa Fe trade proved popular enough that a revised "second edition," credited to J. & H.G. Langley rather than Henry G. Langley alone, followed within a year, so the 1844 date alone does not establish first-issue status -- the imprint wording and publisher's name must both be checked
- Publisher imprint reads Henry G. Langley
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Josiah Gregg |
| Publisher | Henry G. Langley |
| Year | 1844 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | New York: Henry G. Langley, 1844, two 12mo volumes (roughly xvi, [17]-320 and viii, [9]-318 pages), illustrated with two steel-engraved… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
New York: Henry G. Langley, 1844, two 12mo volumes (roughly xvi, [17]-320 and viii, [9]-318 pages), illustrated with two steel-engraved frontispieces, four wood-engraved plates, and two engraved maps, including Gregg's own large folding map of the Indian Territory, northern Texas, and New Mexico. The true first issue carries "New York" alone in the Langley imprint on the volume-one title page; a second issue of the same year adds a London co-imprint alongside Langley's on that same title page. First-issue sets were bound in the publisher's brown pictorial cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. Gregg's memoir of the Santa Fe trade proved popular enough that a revised "second edition," credited to J. & H.G. Langley rather than Henry G. Langley alone, followed within a year, so the 1844 date alone does not establish first-issue status -- the imprint wording and publisher's name must both be checked.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The heavily annotated Max Moorhead scholarly edition (University of Oklahoma Press, 1954) and other 20th-century reprints are not the first edition; also watch for Langley's own 1845 "second edition" (J. & H.G. Langley), identifiable by the altered publisher's imprint, which is not the 1844 first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Commerce of the Prairies* by Josiah Gregg a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/commerce-of-the-prairies
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.