# Is "for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf" by Ntozake Shange a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange (Shameless Hussy Press, San Lorenzo, California, 1975) is identified by: CENSUS YEAR CORRECTED: the Shameless Hussy Press original is dated 1975, not 1976. True first: Shameless Hussy Press, San Lorenzo, California, 1975 — a small feminist-press chapbook in wrappers, which precedes the trade publication by two years.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- CENSUS YEAR CORRECTED: the Shameless Hussy Press original is dated 1975, not 1976
- The true first is a slim chapbook of [28] pages in publisher's side-stapled pictorial red wrappers, illustrated by Wopo Hulup — illustrations that do not appear in any later edition
- The defining point of issue is that the author's first name is MISSPELLED on the front wrapper as "Ntosake" rather than "Ntozake"; this misspelling is independently recorded both by an ABAA dealer description and by Florida State University's CTRC exhibit catalogue record for its copy (which also notes the red cover with a purple rose)
- The pamphlet carries no edition or printing statement; identification rests on the Shameless Hussy Press imprint, the 1975 date, the wrappers, the Hulup illustrations, and the misspelled name
- Sources consulted document no distinct states or issues within the Shameless Hussy printing
- Publisher imprint reads Shameless Hussy Press, San Lorenzo, California
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ntozake Shange |
| Publisher | Shameless Hussy Press, San Lorenzo, California |
| Year | 1975 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | CENSUS YEAR CORRECTED: the Shameless Hussy Press original is dated 1975, not 1976 |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
CENSUS YEAR CORRECTED: the Shameless Hussy Press original is dated 1975, not 1976. The true first is a slim chapbook of [28] pages in publisher's side-stapled pictorial red wrappers, illustrated by Wopo Hulup — illustrations that do not appear in any later edition. The defining point of issue is that the author's first name is MISSPELLED on the front wrapper as "Ntosake" rather than "Ntozake"; this misspelling is independently recorded both by an ABAA dealer description and by Florida State University's CTRC exhibit catalogue record for its copy (which also notes the red cover with a purple rose). The pamphlet carries no edition or printing statement; identification rests on the Shameless Hussy Press imprint, the 1975 date, the wrappers, the Hulup illustrations, and the misspelled name. Sources consulted document no distinct states or issues within the Shameless Hussy printing.

## Is this the true first?
True first: Shameless Hussy Press, San Lorenzo, California, 1975 — a small feminist-press chapbook in wrappers, which precedes the trade publication by two years. The census note is correct that the familiar Macmillan hardcover is a LATER edition routinely missold as the first, but the Macmillan is dated 1977 (New York, 64 pp., quarter blue cloth over yellow and orange paper boards, gilt spine lettering, jacket designed by Rubin Pfeffer, price present at the front flap). The Macmillan text is expanded: it adds a preface, absent from the Shameless Hussy chapbook, in which Shange recounts the opening at Minnie's Can-Do Club in Haight-Ashbury and the move to Broadway. There is no competing UK or original-language edition; the precedence question here is purely small-press-vs-trade, and the 1977 Macmillan is a genuine "first thus" (first hardcover, first with the preface), never the first edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
A Literary Guild book-club edition of the Macmillan text followed in October 1977 and is the reprint most often mistaken for the Macmillan first; check for the usual club tells (absence of a price at the jacket flap, blind-stamp or dot to the rear board, lighter bulk and lower-grade boards). No book-club or reprint issue exists of the 1975 Shameless Hussy chapbook itself.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf* by Ntozake Shange a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/for-colored-girls-who-have-considered-suicide-when-the-rainb
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.