# Is "Discrete Series" by George Oppen a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Discrete Series by George Oppen (The Objectivist Press, New York, 1934) is identified by: First edition, published in New York by The Objectivist Press in March 1934, with the preface by Ezra Pound; collation 37 pp. US only — census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, published in New York by The Objectivist Press in March 1934, with the preface by Ezra Pound; collation 37 pp
- Issued in pale green cloth with a printed paper label on the spine, the fore-edge and bottom edge untrimmed, in a plain pale grey dust jacket
- No printed edition or printing statement appears in the book, so identification rests on the 1934 Objectivist Press imprint, the green cloth with spine label, the Pound preface and the collation
- The fragile grey jacket is very often absent
- Two independent ABAA-level dealer descriptions (Raritan River Books
- Compass Rose Books) agree on the green cloth, spine label, 37 pp and Pound preface
- Publisher imprint reads The Objectivist Press, New York

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | George Oppen |
| Publisher | The Objectivist Press, New York |
| Year | 1934 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, published in New York by The Objectivist Press in March 1934, with the preface by Ezra Pound; collation 37 pp |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, published in New York by The Objectivist Press in March 1934, with the preface by Ezra Pound; collation 37 pp. Issued in pale green cloth with a printed paper label on the spine, the fore-edge and bottom edge untrimmed, in a plain pale grey dust jacket. No printed edition or printing statement appears in the book, so identification rests on the 1934 Objectivist Press imprint, the green cloth with spine label, the Pound preface and the collation. The fragile grey jacket is very often absent. Two independent ABAA-level dealer descriptions (Raritan River Books; Compass Rose Books) agree on the green cloth, spine label, 37 pp and Pound preface.

## Is this the true first?
US only — census claim confirmed. There was no contemporaneous UK or other-language edition; The Objectivist Press (the Zukofsky / Reznikoff / Oppen imprint, whose books were underwritten directly by their authors) issued it in New York in 1934 in a small printing. Subsequent appearances are the 1966 Mother/Asphodel photographic reprint and the collected editions (Collected Poems, 1975; New Collected Poems, 2002), none of which are firsts. Print runs of roughly 500 copies are cited in the trade but could not be confirmed against a second independent source, so no figure is asserted here.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue. The standing first-thus trap is the Cleveland Mother/Asphodel reissue of 1966 — plain white wrappers with a printed dust wrapper, cover design by Leni (Magdalene Arndt) Sinclair, 36–38 pp — which states that it is 'reprinted photographically from the 1934 edition.' Because it reproduces the 1934 text and title-page it is regularly miscatalogued as the first; the binding settles it (white wrappers, not green cloth with spine label). At least one general reference conflates the 1966 wrappers with the 1934 original.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Discrete Series* by George Oppen a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/discrete-series
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.