# Is "Lord Weary's Castle" by Robert Lowell a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Lord Weary's Castle by Robert Lowell (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1946) is identified by: Black cloth boards, gilt spine lettering, 69 pp., octavo. US true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Black cloth boards, gilt spine lettering, 69 pp., octavo
- The title-page verso states 'first edition'
- Pictorial dust jacket
- The same-year second impression deletes the 'first edition' statement, carries the code [b.3.47] on the copyright page, was styled 'Second Edition' on the jacket flap, and silently revised four poems: 'The Exile's Return,' 'The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket,' 'The First Sunday in Lent,' and 'Where the Rainbow Ends.'
- Publisher imprint reads Harcourt, Brace and Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Robert Lowell |
| Publisher | Harcourt, Brace and Company |
| Year | 1946 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | Black cloth boards, gilt spine lettering, 69 pp., octavo |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Black cloth boards, gilt spine lettering, 69 pp., octavo. The title-page verso states 'first edition'. Pictorial dust jacket. The same-year second impression deletes the 'first edition' statement, carries the code [b.3.47] on the copyright page, was styled 'Second Edition' on the jacket flap, and silently revised four poems: 'The Exile's Return,' 'The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket,' 'The First Sunday in Lent,' and 'Where the Rainbow Ends.'

## Is this the true first?
US true first. This was Lowell's second book, following the very scarce 1944 limited Land of Unlikeness, and won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize. The Faber UK edition followed, so there is no UK-precedence issue.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition of consequence. The trap is the same-year second impression, distinguished by the absence of the 'first edition' statement on the title-page verso, the [b.3.47] code, and the revised poem texts. The four revised poems are documented in Mazzaro's Lowell bibliography.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Lord Weary's Castle* by Robert Lowell a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/lord-wearys-castle
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.