# Is "Coronado's Children: Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest" by J. Frank Dobie a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Coronado's Children: Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest by J. Frank Dobie (The Southwest Press, 1930) is identified by: The true first is The Southwest Press, Dallas, 1930, illustrated by Ben Carlton Mead: black cloth stamped with a treasure-chest design on the front cover, gilt spine lettering, pictorial map endsheets, 367 pp., 6 x 9. Southwest Press (Dallas) 1930 is the true first; there is no earlier UK or foreign-language edition, and the first UK edition is much later (Hammond, London, 1960).

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is The Southwest Press, Dallas, 1930, illustrated by Ben Carlton Mead: black cloth stamped with a treasure-chest design on the front cover, gilt spine lettering, pictorial map endsheets, 367 pp., 6 x 9
- The decisive point is the dedication on page iii
- The first issue reads "To the memory of my father, R. J. Dobie, A Cowman of the Texas Soil"; the second issue inserts the word "clean," reading "A Clean Cowman of the Texas Soil." Multiple independent dealers catalogue copies bearing "clean" as first edition, second issue, so the dedication wording — not the 1930 title-page date — decides the issue
- A priced jacket with the price present at the flap is expected on a first-issue copy; jackets are scarce on this title and many surviving copies lack them
- Publisher imprint reads The Southwest Press
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | J. Frank Dobie |
| Publisher | The Southwest Press |
| Year | 1930 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is The Southwest Press, Dallas, 1930, illustrated by Ben Carlton Mead: black cloth stamped with a treasure-chest design on… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The true first is The Southwest Press, Dallas, 1930, illustrated by Ben Carlton Mead: black cloth stamped with a treasure-chest design on the front cover, gilt spine lettering, pictorial map endsheets, 367 pp., 6 x 9. The decisive point is the dedication on page iii. The first issue reads "To the memory of my father, R. J. Dobie, A Cowman of the Texas Soil"; the second issue inserts the word "clean," reading "A Clean Cowman of the Texas Soil." Multiple independent dealers catalogue copies bearing "clean" as first edition, second issue, so the dedication wording — not the 1930 title-page date — decides the issue. A priced jacket with the price present at the flap is expected on a first-issue copy; jackets are scarce on this title and many surviving copies lack them.

## Is this the true first?
Southwest Press (Dallas) 1930 is the true first; there is no earlier UK or foreign-language edition, and the first UK edition is much later (Hammond, London, 1960). Note a common cataloguing error: this is Dobie's second book, following A Vaquero of the Brush Country (1929), not his first. "First thus" traps include the Bantam paperback (A-1089, first printing thus February 1953), the University of Texas Press reissues (a 1978 signed limitation of 300, plus 1979 and 1998 issues), and the 1980 Neiman-Marcus / Arion Press goatskin-bound limitation of 300.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The Literary Guild of America issue (New York, copies commonly dated 1931; some catalogued 1930) is the classic trap sold as a first — it is the book-club issue, reported in orange cloth stamped in gilt, and it carries the second-state "A Clean Cowman of the Texas Soil" dedication. A Grosset & Dunlap reprint also exists and is frequently mis-catalogued as a first edition; one gallery listing consulted during this check offered a Grosset & Dunlap copy as a "first edition, 1930."

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Coronado's Children: Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest* by J. Frank Dobie a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/coronados-children-tales-of-lost-mines-and-buried-treasures
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.