# Is "Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp" by Harriet Beecher Stowe a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe (Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1856) is identified by: First edition, published in two volumes by Phillips, Sampson and Company, Boston, 1856, Stowe's second major anti-slavery novel following Uncle Tom's Cabin.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, published in two volumes by Phillips, Sampson and Company, Boston, 1856, Stowe's second major anti-slavery novel following Uncle Tom's Cabin
- Volume one collates vi, [7]-329, [1], [6] pp
- (advertisements); volume two, v, 6-370 pp
- Original binding ('A' per BAL) is decorated dark brown cloth, gold lettering on the spines, boards blind-embossed with a pattern of twenty embossed dots per board, and light yellow endpapers
- First-state textual points include a correct reading on page 88 of volume one, no plate-batter on page 209, and the specific line 'the Dicksons are fewer' at line 9 from the bottom of page 370 in volume two
- Publisher imprint reads Phillips, Sampson and Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Harriet Beecher Stowe |
| Publisher | Phillips, Sampson and Company |
| Year | 1856 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, published in two volumes by Phillips, Sampson and Company, Boston, 1856, Stowe's second major anti-slavery novel following… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, published in two volumes by Phillips, Sampson and Company, Boston, 1856, Stowe's second major anti-slavery novel following Uncle Tom's Cabin. Volume one collates vi, [7]-329, [1], [6] pp. (advertisements); volume two, v, 6-370 pp. Original binding ('A' per BAL) is decorated dark brown cloth, gold lettering on the spines, boards blind-embossed with a pattern of twenty embossed dots per board, and light yellow endpapers. First-state textual points include a correct reading on page 88 of volume one, no plate-batter on page 209, and the specific line 'the Dicksons are fewer' at line 9 from the bottom of page 370 in volume two.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Later reprintings retitled Nina Gordon (an 1866 Ticknor and Fields, Boston reissue) are the same text under a different title and binding; readers should not mistake a Nina Gordon-titled copy, however early, for the original 1856 Dred first edition under its original title and Phillips, Sampson imprint.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp* by Harriet Beecher Stowe a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/dred-a-tale-of-the-great-dismal-swamp
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.