# Is "Elmer" by David McKee a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Elmer by David McKee (Dennis Dobson, 1968) is identified by: The true first is the 1968 Dennis Dobson quarto, with colour illustrations throughout by the author including the rear endpapers, bound in red cloth-covered boards lettered on the spine and issued in a pictorial dust wrapper (Jonkers Rare Books; Rooke Books/PBFA; Dominic Winter lot 678, "original red boards" in jacket). Single UK edition; there was no simultaneous or near-simultaneous American edition, so the Dobson 1968 is the only first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the 1968 Dennis Dobson quarto, with colour illustrations throughout by the author including the rear endpapers, bound in red cloth-covered boards lettered on the spine and issued in a pictorial dust wrapper (Jonkers Rare Books
- Rooke Books/PBFA; Dominic Winter lot 678, "original red boards" in jacket)
- It contains the original, longer, un-redrawn artwork and text
- No dealer or auction record consulted cites an edition statement, printing statement or number line, so identification rests on the Dennis Dobson imprint and the 1968 date on the title/copyright page together with the red-cloth-and-jacket format
- Price present at the flap is a jacket-integrity point only; most surviving copies are price-clipped
- Caution on binding: copies in glazed colour-illustrated boards without a jacket have been catalogued by Dominic Winter as an early Dobson reprint of circa 1970, and the same house catalogued an apparently identical glazed-boards copy as "the printed pricet edition, 1968" in another sale, so a jacketless glazed-boards copy should not be assumed to be the first printing
- Publisher imprint reads Dennis Dobson

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | David McKee |
| Publisher | Dennis Dobson |
| Year | 1968 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | The true first is the 1968 Dennis Dobson quarto, with colour illustrations throughout by the author including the rear endpapers, bound in… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The true first is the 1968 Dennis Dobson quarto, with colour illustrations throughout by the author including the rear endpapers, bound in red cloth-covered boards lettered on the spine and issued in a pictorial dust wrapper (Jonkers Rare Books; Rooke Books/PBFA; Dominic Winter lot 678, "original red boards" in jacket). It contains the original, longer, un-redrawn artwork and text. No dealer or auction record consulted cites an edition statement, printing statement or number line, so identification rests on the Dennis Dobson imprint and the 1968 date on the title/copyright page together with the red-cloth-and-jacket format. Price present at the flap is a jacket-integrity point only; most surviving copies are price-clipped. Caution on binding: copies in glazed colour-illustrated boards without a jacket have been catalogued by Dominic Winter as an early Dobson reprint of circa 1970, and the same house catalogued an apparently identical glazed-boards copy as "the printed pricet edition, 1968" in another sale, so a jacketless glazed-boards copy should not be assumed to be the first printing.

## Is this the true first?
Single UK edition; there was no simultaneous or near-simultaneous American edition, so the Dobson 1968 is the only first. The census claim is confirmed. The familiar 1989 Andersen Press Elmer is a re-drawn and slightly shortened re-issue — pictorially and textually a different book, a "first thus" trap, not the first edition — and it is the 1989 version that made the character internationally famous, so it is common while the 1968 Dobson is genuinely scarce (Dominic Winter noted it had not seen another first at auction; COPAC records very few UK institutional copies).

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Dominic Winter records an early Dennis Dobson reprint of circa 1970 in original glazed colour-illustrated boards, without jacket — the most likely thing to be mis-sold as the first. The 1989 Andersen Press re-issue and its very many subsequent printings are the reprints most often mistaken for the first; they carry the redrawn illustrations, which is the quickest tell. No book-club issue of the 1968 Dobson is documented in the sources consulted.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Elmer* by David McKee a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/elmer
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.