# Is "Dutchman and The Slave" by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Dutchman and The Slave by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) (William Morrow, New York, 1964) is identified by: First edition, first printing: William Morrow & Company, New York, 1964. US true first — census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing: William Morrow & Company, New York, 1964
- The point is the copyright page, which lists no additional printings; there is no number line, and later printings are identified by the printing statement added there
- Critically, the book was issued simultaneously in two formats in 1964 — a clothbound issue and a wrappers issue in Morrow's Apollo Editions (A-122) — so 'first edition' alone does not settle the format, and ABAA dealers accordingly catalogue the hardback as the 'clothbound issue'
- The clothbound issue is quarter white/ivory cloth over black paper-covered boards; dealer descriptions of the spine lettering CONFLICT (some read black and brown, others red and black), so treat the lettering colour as unsettled and rely on the copyright page and the format
- A yellow topstain is reported, but by a single source only
- The pictorial dust jacket is by Lawrence Ratzkin; some jackets carry a gold-foil 'Off-Broadway Award Winner' sticker on the front panel, which is a publisher's promotional addition rather than a state point, and its absence does not demote a copy
- Publisher imprint reads William Morrow, New York

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) |
| Publisher | William Morrow, New York |
| Year | 1964 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, first printing: William Morrow & Company, New York, 1964 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing: William Morrow & Company, New York, 1964. The point is the copyright page, which lists no additional printings; there is no number line, and later printings are identified by the printing statement added there. Critically, the book was issued simultaneously in two formats in 1964 — a clothbound issue and a wrappers issue in Morrow's Apollo Editions (A-122) — so 'first edition' alone does not settle the format, and ABAA dealers accordingly catalogue the hardback as the 'clothbound issue'. The clothbound issue is quarter white/ivory cloth over black paper-covered boards; dealer descriptions of the spine lettering CONFLICT (some read black and brown, others red and black), so treat the lettering colour as unsettled and rely on the copyright page and the format. A yellow topstain is reported, but by a single source only. The pictorial dust jacket is by Lawrence Ratzkin; some jackets carry a gold-foil 'Off-Broadway Award Winner' sticker on the front panel, which is a publisher's promotional addition rather than a state point, and its absence does not demote a copy. Refer to the jacket price only as: priced jacket / price present at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
US true first — census claim confirmed. William Morrow, New York, 1964 precedes the first UK edition, Faber & Faber, London, 1965 ([vi], 88 pp., gilt-lettered red cloth), which is separately collected as the first English edition but is a reprint of the text. Both plays had been staged before publication — Dutchman opened in 1964 and took the Obie for Best American Play — so the Morrow volume is the first book appearance, not the first appearance of the work. The true first bears LeRoi Jones on the title page; any copy reading 'Amiri Baraka' is later, as the author adopted that name after publication.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the Morrow printing. The live trap is format rather than a club copy: the 1964 Apollo Editions paperback (A-122) is a genuine first printing in wrappers and is routinely and accurately listed as 'First Edition; First Printing' — it simply is not the clothbound issue, and buyers of a 'first' frequently receive it. Later Morrow and Apollo printings are identified by the printing statement added to the copyright page. Faber's 1965 edition and its reissues (ISBN 9780571063949) are UK reprints of the text.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Dutchman and The Slave* by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/dutchman-and-the-slave
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.