# Is "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Edmond Rostand a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, Paris, 1898) is identified by: The édition originale is Paris: Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1898, 225 pages, issued in original printed wrappers (very often bound later by the great binders, with the wrappers preserved and bound in at the rear), and carrying Rostand's dedication 'C'est à l'âme de CYRANO que je voulais dédier ce poème' — addressed to Coquelin, who created the role at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin premiere on 28 December 1897. The French original is the true first: Paris, Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1898.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The édition originale is Paris: Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1898, 225 pages, issued in original printed wrappers (very often bound later by the great binders, with the wrappers preserved and bound in at the rear), and carrying Rostand's dedication 'C'est à l'âme de CYRANO que je voulais dédier ce poème' — addressed to Coquelin, who created the role at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin premiere on 28 December 1897
- The tirage de tête is 50 numbered copies on Japon (japan vellum), plus a small number of named copies
- The working point for ordinary-paper copies is the 'mille' statement on the title page: the book was reprinted continuously through 1898 in thousands, and the title pages of later thousands are printed with the mention ('12e mille', '36e mille', '136e mille' and beyond) while still bearing the 1898 date — so an 1898 Charpentier et Fasquelle title page proves the year, not the printing
- Ordinary copies sans mention de mille are the earliest state
- French dealers record that copies below the 20th thousand are difficult to find
- Caveat to state plainly: the trade does not describe a single agreed 'first state' for ordinary paper, so a high-mille 1898 copy is an 1898 printing but is not the first
- Publisher imprint reads Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, Paris

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Edmond Rostand |
| Publisher | Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, Paris |
| Year | 1898 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | The édition originale is Paris: Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1898, 225 pages, issued in original printed wrappers (very often bound… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The édition originale is Paris: Librairie Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1898, 225 pages, issued in original printed wrappers (very often bound later by the great binders, with the wrappers preserved and bound in at the rear), and carrying Rostand's dedication 'C'est à l'âme de CYRANO que je voulais dédier ce poème' — addressed to Coquelin, who created the role at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin premiere on 28 December 1897. The tirage de tête is 50 numbered copies on Japon (japan vellum), plus a small number of named copies. The working point for ordinary-paper copies is the 'mille' statement on the title page: the book was reprinted continuously through 1898 in thousands, and the title pages of later thousands are printed with the mention ('12e mille', '36e mille', '136e mille' and beyond) while still bearing the 1898 date — so an 1898 Charpentier et Fasquelle title page proves the year, not the printing. Ordinary copies sans mention de mille are the earliest state; French dealers record that copies below the 20th thousand are difficult to find. Caveat to state plainly: the trade does not describe a single agreed 'first state' for ordinary paper, so a high-mille 1898 copy is an 1898 printing but is not the first.

## Is this the true first?
The French original is the true first: Paris, Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1898. CENSUS CORRECTION — the claim that 'the first US translation (R. H. Russell, New York) appeared the same year' is not supported and should be struck: R. H. Russell's New York edition is 1899, and it prints the Gladys Thomas / Mary F. Guillemard translation. Four English translations appeared in 1898 (Howard Thayer Kingsbury; Thomas & Guillemard; Charles Renauld; Gertrude Hall, the last published by Doubleday & McClure), and in the United States the play was first published in French by the William R. Jenkins Company in 1898. The Kingsbury translation — Boston/New York/London: Lamson, Wolffe and Company, 1898, the text played by Richard Mansfield at the American premiere (Garden Theater, New York, 3 October 1898), with a Mansfield portrait frontispiece, in publisher's red cloth lettered and decorated in silver — is reported to be the first in English, but that precedence could not be corroborated against a second independent source. Until it is, no English edition should be asserted as 'the' first English; catalogue each as 'first edition of the X translation'.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club tells are documented for the 1898 Charpentier et Fasquelle printings — the mille statement, not a club marking, is what separates the thousands, and it is the only reprint tell that matters on the French side. On the English side the recurring trap is translation-level first-thus: Modern Library, Bantam, and the various acting texts are reprints, and the many competing 1898–1899 New York editions are separate translations rather than states of one edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Cyrano de Bergerac* by Edmond Rostand a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/cyrano-de-bergerac
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.