Is My Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des Moralitez (Perrault's fairy tales / Mother Goose) a First Edition?

The points of issue

• Paris: Claude Barbin, 1697; in-12, anonymous, containing the eight prose tales (La Belle au bois dormant, Le Petit chaperon rouge, La Barbe bleue, Le Maistre chat ou le chat botté, Les Fées, Cendrillon, Riquet à la Houppe, Le Petit Poucet)
• Look for the engraved frontispiece signed by Antoine Clouzier — three children before a peasant woman spinning, with the placard lettered 'contes de ma mère Loye' — plus a copper-engraved vignette at the head of the dedicatory epistle and at the head of each tale
• The dedicatory epistle to Mademoiselle (Élisabeth-Charlotte d'Orléans) is signed 'P. Darmancour', Perrault's son; the printed book nowhere names Charles Perrault
• Two states of the 1697 original are distinguished: copies with the errata leaf ('fautes à corriger') and copies without the errata leaf in which those errors stand corrected in the text; sources describe these as the first and second states but do not uniformly settle the sequence, so state should be recorded descriptively rather than asserted
• A separate second Barbin edition followed within 1697 with the errata silently corrected, and a third Barbin edition appeared in 1707 with the same text and plates under a revised title
• Only a handful of copies of the 1697 original survive; the BnF copy (Rés p Y2 263) is catalogued in mediocre condition

How to confirm the first-printing statement

Publishers stated first printings differently by era. The decisive tells are a printed “First Edition/First Printing” statement, a number line whose lowest number is 1 (Random House ends at 2), or a dated first printing with no later printings listed. Paste your copyright page into the number-line decoder.

How to verify your copy, step by step

1. Find the copyright page — the verso (back) of the title page.
2. Check for a number line or dated printing — the lowest number present is the printing; a dated first printing with no later printings listed is the tell.
3. Verify this is the American true first — not a later-market or reprint edition.
4. Rule out a book-club edition — a blind-stamp on the rear board or a jacket with no printed price marks a book-club copy.
5. Photograph four things — the front cover, spine, title page, and copyright page — the standard record for identification.

The dust jacket

For a collectible first edition the dust jacket matters as much as the book. Confirm the jacket is present and unclipped — the printed price should still be at the corner of the flap (a clipped corner or a price-less flap can indicate a book-club issue). First-state jackets can differ from later ones in the cover art, blurbs, or review quotations; where a specific first-state jacket point is known for this title it is noted above.

Binding & format

Where multiple bindings exist, the hardcover trade issue is usually (but not always) the precedence copy — confirm against the points above. Later printings often show cheaper cloth, thinner boards, or simplified spine stamping. A simultaneous signed or limited issue, when one exists, is a distinct state from the trade first.

Is this the true first?

The Barbin Paris 1697 is the true first and the original-language edition; the census claim is confirmed. Several of the tales had appeared earlier in periodical form in Moetjens's Recueil at The Hague (1696-97) — a pre-publication appearance, not a book edition — and a 1695 manuscript of Contes de ma mère l'Oye with five tales survives at the Morgan Library, which predates print but is a manuscript, not an edition. The first English edition is separately collected: Robert Samber's translation, 'Histories, or Tales of past Times... with Morals. By M. Perrault', London: J. Pote, 1729 — this is the edition that introduced 'Mother Goose Tales' to English and later American readers. Dutch/Amsterdam piracies circulated almost immediately (the Desbordes press issued French editions in 1697, 1700, 1708, 1714 and 1721; the 1721 Desbordes resequenced the tales and that order carried into subsequent English translations), and illustrated Dutch counterfeits are documented — an 'Amsterdam 1697' imprint is not the Paris first.

Telling it from reprints & book-club editions

No book-club issue exists for a 1697 imprint. The live trap is 'first thus': the celebrated illustrated editions — Doré (Paris: Hetzel, 1861), Rackham, and Harry Clarke (1922) — are frequently offered as 'first editions' of Perrault when they are firsts only of their own illustrated issue. Any 18th-century Amsterdam or The Hague French imprint is a piracy/counterfeit, not the Barbin original.

Frequently asked questions

Is my copy of Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des Moralitez (Perrault's fairy tales / Mother Goose) a first edition?

A first edition of Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des Moralitez (Perrault's fairy tales / Mother Goose) by Charles Perrault (Claude Barbin, Paris) is identified by: Paris: Claude Barbin, 1697; in-12, anonymous, containing the eight prose tales (La Belle au bois dormant, Le Petit chaperon rouge, La Barbe bleue, Le Maistre chat ou le chat botté, Les Fées, Cendrillon, Riquet à la Houppe, Le Petit Poucet).

How do I tell the first printing from a later one?

Check the copyright page. A stated first edition, a number line ending in 1, or a dated first printing with no later printings listed is the key. The Barbin Paris 1697 is the true first and the original-language edition; the census claim is confirmed.

Is the book-club edition the same as the first?

No book-club issue exists for a 1697 imprint. The live trap is 'first thus': the celebrated illustrated editions — Doré (Paris: Hetzel, 1861), Rackham, and Harry Clarke (1922) — are frequently offered as 'first editions' of Perrault when they are firsts only of their own illustrated issue. Any 18th-century Amsterdam or The Hague French imprint is a piracy/counterfeit, not the Barbin original.

I have a first edition of Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des Moralitez (Perrault's fairy tales / Mother Goose) — what should I do?

First, document the copy: photograph the copyright page (the number line and any edition statement) and the dust-jacket flap — an unclipped, priced jacket matters. Confirm the points of issue above against your copy, and use the free First Edition Checker to decode the printing. To sell, the author’s collecting guide covers the market. And if you are clearing books in the Albuquerque area, the New Mexico Literacy Project offers free pickup, any condition, and makes sure collectible copies are identified rather than discarded.

Glossary

First edition

Every copy printed from the first setting of type. Collectors usually want the first edition, first printing (the true first).

First printing / impression

A single press run from that setting. The first printing is the earliest and most desirable; later printings are still the first edition but not the true first.

Number line (printer's key)

A row of numbers on the copyright page (e.g. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1). The lowest number present is the printing — a line including 1 marks a first printing (Random House deliberately ends at 2).

Points of issue

Specific physical details — a stated edition, a number line, a typo, a jacket state — that identify the true first printing.

Book-club edition (BCE)

A reprint made for a book club. Tells include a blind-stamped dot or square on the rear board and a dust jacket with no printed price. Not the true first.

First thus

The first appearance of a particular version (first paperback, first illustrated, first U.S. printing) — a first of that kind, not the first edition of the work.