# Is "Critik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason)" by Immanuel Kant a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Critik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) by Immanuel Kant (Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, Riga, 1781) is identified by: First edition, Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1781. The Riga 1781 German printing (the "A" edition) is the true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1781
- Octavo, collating [24], 856 pp. — one blank leaf, title, two leaves of Dedication, eight leaves of Vorrede, one leaf of Inhalt, then 856 numbered pages and a terminal blank; woodcut device on the title with woodcut head- and tail-pieces
- The title must read "Critik" in the original spelling (not the later standard "Kritik") and must carry no edition statement: the 1787 revision is styled "Zweyte hin und wieder verbesserte Auflage" on its title, so any "Auflage" line rules the copy out as the 1781 "A" text
- References: Printing and the Mind of Man 226
- Adickes 46
- Norman 1197
- Publisher imprint reads Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, Riga

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Immanuel Kant |
| Publisher | Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, Riga |
| Year | 1781 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1781 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1781. Octavo, collating [24], 856 pp. — one blank leaf, title, two leaves of Dedication, eight leaves of Vorrede, one leaf of Inhalt, then 856 numbered pages and a terminal blank; woodcut device on the title with woodcut head- and tail-pieces. The title must read "Critik" in the original spelling (not the later standard "Kritik") and must carry no edition statement: the 1787 revision is styled "Zweyte hin und wieder verbesserte Auflage" on its title, so any "Auflage" line rules the copy out as the 1781 "A" text. References: Printing and the Mind of Man 226; Warda 59; Adickes 46; Norman 1197. Only the 1781 printing carries Kant's original "A" Transcendental Deduction; agreement with the 856-page "A" text is the practical check.

## Is this the true first?
The Riga 1781 German printing (the "A" edition) is the true first. The substantially revised second edition (Riga: Hartknoch, 1787, the "B" edition) is separately and seriously collected as the first appearance of the rewritten Transcendental Deduction and the Refutation of Idealism; modern scholarly texts print A and B in parallel, and collectors of the work generally want both. The census claim that Meiklejohn (Bohn, 1855) is the first English translation is INCORRECT and is corrected here: the first English translation is Francis Haywood's "The Critick of Pure Reason" (London: William Pickering, 1838), with Haywood's revised second edition in 1848. J. M. D. Meiklejohn's translation (London: Henry G. Bohn, Bohn's Philosophical Library, 1855) is the second English translation — it is the common Victorian reading copy and the realistic English-market form, but it is not the first English appearance.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No 18th-century book-club analogue exists. Reprint tells: a title reading "Kritik" rather than "Critik", or bearing any "Auflage" statement, is not the 1781 sheet. Bohn's Philosophical Library issues from 1855 and the later Everyman and Macmillan Meiklejohn printings are translations reset from the 1787 B text, not editions of the German first; the Kant-Gesellschaft and Akademie-Ausgabe texts are 20th-century scholarly reprints. Every German edition after 1787 follows the reset B text, so a German-language copy dated after 1781 is by definition not the A edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Critik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason)* by Immanuel Kant a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/critik-der-reinen-vernunft-critique-of-pure-reason
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.