# Is "Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times" by Lydia Maria Child a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times by Lydia Maria Child (Cummings, Hilliard & Co., 1824) is identified by: First edition, published anonymously ('By an American') by Cummings, Hilliard & Co., Boston, 1824 -- Child's first book, written and published while she was still in her early twenties and tackling interracial marriage and divorce themes highly unusual for American fiction of the period.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, published anonymously ('By an American') by Cummings, Hilliard & Co., Boston, 1824 -- Child's first book, written and published while she was still in her early twenties and tackling interracial marriage and divorce themes highly unusual for American fiction of the period
- Collates iv, 5-188 pp., measuring approximately 175 x 105 mm
- Surviving copies are most often found bound in contemporary speckled calf, ruled in gilt, with all edges speckled red and a morocco spine label -- the style in which early purchasers typically had the sheets bound, since American novels of the period were not yet issued in a standardized publisher's cloth
- The book is extremely scarce today, with OCLC recording only about 26 institutional copies and the title appearing at auction only rarely in the past half-century
- Publisher imprint reads Cummings, Hilliard & Co.
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Lydia Maria Child |
| Publisher | Cummings, Hilliard & Co. |
| Year | 1824 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, published anonymously ('By an American') by Cummings, Hilliard & Co., Boston, 1824 -- Child's first book, written and… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, published anonymously ('By an American') by Cummings, Hilliard & Co., Boston, 1824 -- Child's first book, written and published while she was still in her early twenties and tackling interracial marriage and divorce themes highly unusual for American fiction of the period. Collates iv, 5-188 pp., measuring approximately 175 x 105 mm. Surviving copies are most often found bound in contemporary speckled calf, ruled in gilt, with all edges speckled red and a morocco spine label -- the style in which early purchasers typically had the sheets bound, since American novels of the period were not yet issued in a standardized publisher's cloth. The book is extremely scarce today, with OCLC recording only about 26 institutional copies and the title appearing at auction only rarely in the past half-century.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Child's own later revisions and abridgments of her early fiction for younger readers, along with 20th-century scholarly reprint anthologies (e.g., collections titled Hobomok and Other Writings on Indians), are clearly modern editorial productions distinguishable from the anonymous 1824 Cummings, Hilliard first edition.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times* by Lydia Maria Child a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/hobomok-a-tale-of-early-times
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.