# Is "Mexico City Blues" by Jack Kerouac a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Mexico City Blues by Jack Kerouac (Grove Press, 1959) is identified by: Grove Press, New York, 1959. Grove Press US (1959) is the true first; Kerouac's '242 Choruses.' The grey-clothbound issue in the black-and-white jacket is preferred over the red/green/black wrappers issue.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Grove Press, New York, 1959
- Issued in cloth and in wrappers
- The clothbound first is bound in grey cloth with the spine lettered in gilt and belongs in a black-and-white first-state dust jacket carrying its printed price
- Charters's bibliography mistakenly calls for a jacket printed in red, green and black, but those are the colours of the wrappers issue and of later jackets; the correct cloth-issue jacket is black and white
- First printing has a copyright page without any later-printing notice
- Confirm the grey cloth with gilt spine, the black-and-white priced jacket, and a first-printing copyright page
- Publisher imprint reads Grove Press

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jack Kerouac |
| Publisher | Grove Press |
| Year | 1959 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | Grove Press, New York, 1959 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Grove Press, New York, 1959. Issued in cloth and in wrappers. The clothbound first is bound in grey cloth with the spine lettered in gilt and belongs in a black-and-white first-state dust jacket carrying its printed price. Charters's bibliography mistakenly calls for a jacket printed in red, green and black, but those are the colours of the wrappers issue and of later jackets; the correct cloth-issue jacket is black and white. First printing has a copyright page without any later-printing notice. Confirm the grey cloth with gilt spine, the black-and-white priced jacket, and a first-printing copyright page.

## Is this the true first?
Grove Press US (1959) is the true first; Kerouac's '242 Choruses.' The grey-clothbound issue in the black-and-white jacket is preferred over the red/green/black wrappers issue.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Not a book-club staple. Do not accept a red/green/black jacket on a cloth copy as first-state; that colour scheme belongs to the wrappers issue and later jackets. Verify the Grove imprint, first-printing copyright page, grey cloth with gilt spine, and black-and-white priced jacket for the cloth issue.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Mexico City Blues* by Jack Kerouac a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/mexico-city-blues
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.