# Is "Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (William D. Ticknor & Co., 1847) is identified by: First edition, first printing, issued in an edition of 1,000 copies.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing, issued in an edition of 1,000 copies
- First-state text reads "Long" in the first line of page 61; the corrected second state reads "Lo" for "Long," a change that occurred accidentally during the print run
- True first-edition sheets carry a four-page publisher's catalogue dated October 1, 1847, present at the front or rear depending on the copy, and the book collates as an octavo of 163 pages
- Original publisher's binding is plain boards backed in tan cloth with yellow endpapers
- Publisher imprint reads William D. Ticknor & Co.
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
| Publisher | William D. Ticknor & Co. |
| Year | 1847 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, first printing, issued in an edition of 1,000 copies |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing, issued in an edition of 1,000 copies. First-state text reads "Long" in the first line of page 61; the corrected second state reads "Lo" for "Long," a change that occurred accidentally during the print run. True first-edition sheets carry a four-page publisher's catalogue dated October 1, 1847, present at the front or rear depending on the copy, and the book collates as an octavo of 163 pages. Original publisher's binding is plain boards backed in tan cloth with yellow endpapers.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Later Ticknor & Fields/Houghton Mifflin printings, and inclusion within the multi-volume "Poetical Works" or "Household Edition" collected sets, differ in binding and format and lack the October 1847 dated advertisements and the page-61 textual point described above.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie* by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/evangeline-a-tale-of-acadie
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.