# Is "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" by Virginia Lee Burton a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton (Houghton Mifflin, 1939) is identified by: Houghton Mifflin's house practice of the period is the identifying method, and it is negative rather than stated: the date 1939 appears in arabic numerals on the title page of first printings and is removed on subsequent printings, and the copyright page carries no later-printing statement and no later date (Houghton Mifflin only began consistently printing a 'first printing' statement in the late 1950s). US true first confirmed: Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1939, and it is the sole first — no earlier or simultaneous British or foreign-language edition is documented in the sources consulted, and non-US editions are later.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Houghton Mifflin's house practice of the period is the identifying method, and it is negative rather than stated: the date 1939 appears in arabic numerals on the title page of first printings and is removed on subsequent printings, and the copyright page carries no later-printing statement and no later date (Houghton Mifflin only began consistently printing a 'first printing' statement in the late 1950s)
- Format is oblong quarto (roughly 9 the printed price x 8 the printed price in.) in publisher's pictorial cloth stamped in red and black, with illustrated endpapers; dealers describe the cloth variously as tan, wheat, or grey, so cloth shade is not a reliable printing point
- The pictorial red jacket is where the issue work is done: the early jacket carries an advertisement for Burton's Choo Choo at the rear inner flap, shows no author credit on the spine panel, and has 'H.M.Co.' on a yellow ground at the spine
- First-issue jackets have the original (lowest) price present at the front flap, unclipped; a later-issue jacket on an otherwise-1939 book shows a higher flap price
- Price-clipped jackets cannot be placed on that point
- Publisher imprint reads Houghton Mifflin
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Virginia Lee Burton |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
| Year | 1939 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Houghton Mifflin's house practice of the period is the identifying method, and it is negative rather than stated: the date 1939 appears in… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Houghton Mifflin's house practice of the period is the identifying method, and it is negative rather than stated: the date 1939 appears in arabic numerals on the title page of first printings and is removed on subsequent printings, and the copyright page carries no later-printing statement and no later date (Houghton Mifflin only began consistently printing a 'first printing' statement in the late 1950s). Format is oblong quarto (roughly 9 the printed price x 8 the printed price in.) in publisher's pictorial cloth stamped in red and black, with illustrated endpapers; dealers describe the cloth variously as tan, wheat, or grey, so cloth shade is not a reliable printing point. The pictorial red jacket is where the issue work is done: the early jacket carries an advertisement for Burton's Choo Choo at the rear inner flap, shows no author credit on the spine panel, and has 'H.M.Co.' on a yellow ground at the spine. First-issue jackets have the original (lowest) price present at the front flap, unclipped; a later-issue jacket on an otherwise-1939 book shows a higher flap price. Price-clipped jackets cannot be placed on that point.

## Is this the true first?
US true first confirmed: Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1939, and it is the sole first — no earlier or simultaneous British or foreign-language edition is documented in the sources consulted, and non-US editions are later. The census claim of a US-only true first stands as written; there is no UK-vs-US precedence question for this title.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No 1939-era book-club issue is documented in the sources consulted. The routine confusions are (a) later Houghton Mifflin printings, told by removal of the 1939 date from the title page and/or a later-printing notice on the copyright page — dealers catalogue printings well into the twenties; (b) Scholastic and similar paperback reprints from the 1970s onward, which carry ISBNs; and (c) a first-printing book wearing a later-issue jacket, which the higher flap price and jacket state reveal. The acknowledgement to Dickie Birkenbush appears in early and later printings alike and should not be treated as a first-printing point.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel* by Virginia Lee Burton a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/mike-mulligan-and-his-steam-shovel
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.