# Is "Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain" by Edward Ardizzone a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain by Edward Ardizzone (Oxford University Press, 1936) is identified by: No edition statement — Oxford University Press stated nothing on first editions until the late 1980s but did note subsequent printings, so absence of any later-impression statement is the governing point. Correcting the census note: this is not separate UK and US editions but a single Oxford University Press edition of 1936 issued under one imprint reading London, New York, Toronto, with the sheets printed in the United States.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- No edition statement — Oxford University Press stated nothing on first editions until the late 1980s but did note subsequent printings, so absence of any later-impression statement is the governing point
- The title page must carry the imprint sequence "London, New York, Toronto"; this is the accepted first-printing point
- Large format quarto/folio, [66] pp., printed on one side of the leaf only; original pictorial boards with titles to the front cover in red
- Colour offset lithography throughout — an early and important example of the process; the sheets were printed in the United States and the text was hand-lettered by Grace Allen Hogarth, an editor in the OUP New York office
- The first-issue dust wrapper has blank flaps with no reviews printed on them; wrappers are fragile and frequently chipped or absent
- This was Ardizzone's first book as both author and illustrator; the complete colour draft is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum
- Publisher imprint reads Oxford University Press

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Edward Ardizzone |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year | 1936 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | No edition statement — Oxford University Press stated nothing on first editions until the late 1980s but did note subsequent printings, so… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
No edition statement — Oxford University Press stated nothing on first editions until the late 1980s but did note subsequent printings, so absence of any later-impression statement is the governing point. The title page must carry the imprint sequence "London, New York, Toronto"; this is the accepted first-printing point. Large format quarto/folio, [66] pp., printed on one side of the leaf only; original pictorial boards with titles to the front cover in red. Colour offset lithography throughout — an early and important example of the process; the sheets were printed in the United States and the text was hand-lettered by Grace Allen Hogarth, an editor in the OUP New York office. The first-issue dust wrapper has blank flaps with no reviews printed on them; wrappers are fragile and frequently chipped or absent. This was Ardizzone's first book as both author and illustrator; the complete colour draft is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

## Is this the true first?
Correcting the census note: this is not separate UK and US editions but a single Oxford University Press edition of 1936 issued under one imprint reading London, New York, Toronto, with the sheets printed in the United States. There is therefore no UK-vs-US precedence contest — the 1936 OUP issue is the true first. The major trap is the 1955 edition (Oxford University Press in the UK; Henry Z. Walck, Inc., New York in the US), which was completely redesigned and redrawn with additional text: a "first thus" of a different work, not a reprint of the 1936 text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
A 1944 wrappered issue exists and is not the first. The 1955 Walck / OUP redrawn second edition — quarto, 26 cm, 48 pp., light red publisher's cloth in a colour pictorial dust wrapper — is the commonest misidentification and is frequently offered as a first. Puffin and later paperback issues are reprints.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain* by Edward Ardizzone a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/little-tim-and-the-brave-sea-captain
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.