# Is "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by Barack Obama a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (Times Books, 1995) is identified by: New York: Times Books (a Random House imprint), 1995; published 18 July 1995. US precedence, and the census claim is correct: the 1995 Times Books hardcover is the true first, with no competing first edition from another country and no original-language issue behind it.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- New York: Times Books (a Random House imprint), 1995; published 18 July 1995
- The first printing states "First Edition" on the copyright page AND carries a complete Random House-style number line reading 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
- Random House omitted the "1" from its first-printing lines, so the correct first-printing signature is the "First Edition" statement together with a line whose lowest digit is 2; a line whose lowest digit is 3 or higher is a later printing
- Octavo, 403 pp., ISBN 0-8129-2343-X, issued in a priced jacket (price present at the front flap)
- A clipped flap removes one confirming point but does not by itself demote a copy whose copyright page is correct
- The first printing was small — trade sources cite figures between roughly 7,500 and 8,000 copies, and the two numbers are not reconciled across the sources consulted, so neither should be stated as fact
- Publisher imprint reads Times Books

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Barack Obama |
| Publisher | Times Books |
| Year | 1995 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | New York: Times Books (a Random House imprint), 1995; published 18 July 1995 |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
New York: Times Books (a Random House imprint), 1995; published 18 July 1995. The first printing states "First Edition" on the copyright page AND carries a complete Random House-style number line reading 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. Random House omitted the "1" from its first-printing lines, so the correct first-printing signature is the "First Edition" statement together with a line whose lowest digit is 2; a line whose lowest digit is 3 or higher is a later printing. Octavo, 403 pp., ISBN 0-8129-2343-X, issued in a priced jacket (price present at the front flap). A clipped flap removes one confirming point but does not by itself demote a copy whose copyright page is correct. The first printing was small — trade sources cite figures between roughly 7,500 and 8,000 copies, and the two numbers are not reconciled across the sources consulted, so neither should be stated as fact.

## Is this the true first?
US precedence, and the census claim is correct: the 1995 Times Books hardcover is the true first, with no competing first edition from another country and no original-language issue behind it. The book went out of print soon after publication and was reissued in 2004 by Crown / Three Rivers Press following Obama's Democratic National Convention keynote; that 2004 reissue is the copy most commonly offered as a "first edition" and is not one.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The 2004 Crown hardcover and Three Rivers Press paperback are "first thus" reissues of the 1995 text, not the first edition, regardless of what their own copyright pages state about their edition. A 1995 Times Books Advance Reader's Edition exists in printed wrappers under a distinct ISBN (0-8129-2572-X); it precedes the trade issue chronologically but is a proof, not the first edition, and it is not the book described above. No dedicated book-club issue of the 1995 Times Books printing is documented in the sources consulted.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance* by Barack Obama a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/dreams-from-my-father-a-story-of-race-and-inheritance
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.