# Is "Curious George" by H. A. Rey a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Curious George by H. A. Rey (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941) is identified by: First edition, first printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, with '1941' printed on the title page, which reads 'Curious George / by / H. The census claim that Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1941 is the true first is upheld - the Reys reached New York in 1940 after fleeing Paris, and Curious George was first published in America in August 1941.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, with '1941' printed on the title page, which reads 'Curious George / by / H. A. Rey / Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston / 1941'
- The copyright verso of the first printing reads only 'Copyright, 1941, by H. A. Rey / All rights reserved including the right to reproduce the book or parts thereof in any form.' - no printing statement, no number line, and nothing further added beneath the copyright notice
- Quarto, unpaginated, approximately 10 the printed price x 8 the printed price inches, bound in publisher's red (brick red) cloth with a Curious George vignette stamped on the front board showing George reaching for the yellow hat, the spine lettered 'Curious George' with 'H.M.Co.' at the foot
- The first-issue jacket is a priced jacket with the price present at the front flap; the front flap carries the synopsis and the rear flap a short Rey biography plus an advertisement for his stunt book 'How Do You Get There?'
- Because later printings retain the 1941 copyright date, the jacket and the unadorned copyright verso carry the identification; one secondary source reports that later printings add a 'Lithographed in the U.S.A.' line beneath the copyright notice, but that tell is single-source here and should be treated as unconfirmed
- Publisher imprint reads Houghton Mifflin Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | H. A. Rey |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin Company |
| Year | 1941 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | First edition, first printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, with '1941' printed on the title page, which reads 'Curious George / by /… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, with '1941' printed on the title page, which reads 'Curious George / by / H. A. Rey / Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston / 1941'. The copyright verso of the first printing reads only 'Copyright, 1941, by H. A. Rey / All rights reserved including the right to reproduce the book or parts thereof in any form.' - no printing statement, no number line, and nothing further added beneath the copyright notice. Quarto, unpaginated, approximately 10 the printed price x 8 the printed price inches, bound in publisher's red (brick red) cloth with a Curious George vignette stamped on the front board showing George reaching for the yellow hat, the spine lettered 'Curious George' with 'H.M.Co.' at the foot. The first-issue jacket is a priced jacket with the price present at the front flap; the front flap carries the synopsis and the rear flap a short Rey biography plus an advertisement for his stunt book 'How Do You Get There?'. Because later printings retain the 1941 copyright date, the jacket and the unadorned copyright verso carry the identification; one secondary source reports that later printings add a 'Lithographed in the U.S.A.' line beneath the copyright notice, but that tell is single-source here and should be treated as unconfirmed.

## Is this the true first?
The census claim that Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1941 is the true first is upheld - the Reys reached New York in 1940 after fleeing Paris, and Curious George was first published in America in August 1941. Two census details are wrong and are corrected here: the 1939 French precursor was published in Paris as 'Rafi et les 9 singes', with a UK version the same year as 'Raffy and the 9 Monkeys', and in it the monkey is called Fifi; 'Cecily G. and the 9 Monkeys' is the 1942 Houghton Mifflin American retitling of that book, not a 1939 French title. The first British edition of Curious George itself appeared as 'Zozo' (Chatto & Windus, London, 1942), the character renamed so as not to associate King George VI with a monkey; it is separately collected as the first UK appearance and was later reissued under the Curious George title with revised text. Margret Rey went uncredited as co-author on early copies.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Later printings carry the same 1941 copyright date. Date a suspect copy by the list of Curious George titles on the last page and the rear jacket flap - a list running as far as 'Curious George Flies a Kite', for instance, places a copy circa 1958 or later. Standard mid-century book-club tells apply to the reprints: 'Book Club Edition' at the foot of the front jacket flap, an unpriced jacket, and a blind-stamped dot or square on the rear board near the spine. Weekly Reader and Scholastic reprints are common and are not the Houghton Mifflin trade issue.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Curious George* by H. A. Rey a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/curious-george
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.