# Is "Little Bear" by Else Holmelund Minarik (illus. Maurice Sendak) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik (illus. Maurice Sendak) (Harper & Brothers, 1957) is identified by: True first is the Harper & Brothers issue: the imprint reads Harper & Brothers on the title page and jacket, and any copy carrying the Harper & Row imprint postdates the 1962 merger and is a reprint. US precedes.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first is the Harper & Brothers issue: the imprint reads Harper & Brothers on the title page and jacket, and any copy carrying the Harper & Row imprint postdates the 1962 merger and is a reprint
- The imprint is necessary but not sufficient — reprints struck between 1957 and 1961 also read Harper & Brothers
- Bound in half black cloth over pictorial boards, 8vo
- The jacket should be present and priced (price present at the front flap, unclipped)
- Bauman Rare Books records the code "40-80 / No
- 7690A" at the front flap of the first-issue jacket (a single-source point, attributed rather than corroborated)
- Publisher imprint reads Harper & Brothers

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Else Holmelund Minarik (illus. Maurice Sendak) |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
| Year | 1957 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | True first is the Harper & Brothers issue: the imprint reads Harper & Brothers on the title page and jacket, and any copy carrying the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first is the Harper & Brothers issue: the imprint reads Harper & Brothers on the title page and jacket, and any copy carrying the Harper & Row imprint postdates the 1962 merger and is a reprint. The imprint is necessary but not sufficient — reprints struck between 1957 and 1961 also read Harper & Brothers. Bound in half black cloth over pictorial boards, 8vo. The jacket should be present and priced (price present at the front flap, unclipped); Bauman Rare Books records the code "40-80 / No. 7690A" at the front flap of the first-issue jacket (a single-source point, attributed rather than corroborated). Catalogued as Hanrahan A26 in Joyce Hanrahan, Works of Maurice Sendak 1947–1994. Dealers disagree over which flap price belongs to the first issue, so the jacket price alone is not decisive; rely on the imprint, binding, and Hanrahan A26. Per Harper's practice from 1922 a first printing's copyright page carries a "FIRST EDITION" statement, but the dealer descriptions consulted rest on imprint and binding rather than on a statement, so treat the statement as corroborative rather than established for this title.

## Is this the true first?
US precedes. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1957 is the true first, and the first title in Harper's I Can Read series. The census note "US-only" is imprecise: a UK edition followed from World's Work (Kingswood, Surrey) in 1958, but it is later and not the true first. The US Harper & Brothers issue is the edition collected.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No dedicated book-club issue documented for the 1957 Harper & Brothers printing in the sources consulted. The practical reprint tell is the imprint: Harper & Row on the title page or jacket spine indicates a post-1962 reprint. Later I Can Read reissues and Harper Trophy paperbacks are common and are not confused with the first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Little Bear* by Else Holmelund Minarik (illus. Maurice Sendak) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/little-bear
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.