# Is "Montage of a Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Montage of a Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1951) is identified by: First printings state 'First Edition' on the copyright page. US only — census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First printings state 'First Edition' on the copyright page
- Collation 75 pp, comprising 91 individually titled poems intended to be read as a single suite
- Bound in black cloth (boards) lettered in red on the spine, issued in a pictorial dust jacket catalogued by dealers as designed by Walter Miles; a priced jacket with the price present at the front flap is the first-issue state
- Bauman Rare Books and bookfever.com independently describe the black cloth with red spine lettering and the stated 'First Edition' copyright page
- Grendel Books (ABAA/ILAB) independently confirms the stated first and the 75-page collation
- Publisher imprint reads Henry Holt and Company, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Langston Hughes |
| Publisher | Henry Holt and Company, New York |
| Year | 1951 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First printings state 'First Edition' on the copyright page |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First printings state 'First Edition' on the copyright page. Collation 75 pp, comprising 91 individually titled poems intended to be read as a single suite. Bound in black cloth (boards) lettered in red on the spine, issued in a pictorial dust jacket catalogued by dealers as designed by Walter Miles; a priced jacket with the price present at the front flap is the first-issue state. Bauman Rare Books and bookfever.com independently describe the black cloth with red spine lettering and the stated 'First Edition' copyright page; Grendel Books (ABAA/ILAB) independently confirms the stated first and the 75-page collation.

## Is this the true first?
US only — census claim confirmed. Henry Holt, New York, 1951 is the true first; no contemporaneous British edition is recorded. Subsequent appearances of the sequence are within later collected and selected volumes rather than separate editions of this book, and those are not firsts.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for this title. The operative reprint tell is the copyright page: later Holt printings drop the 'First Edition' slug. Caution — ex-library copies rebound in buckram (original cloth and jacket gone) circulate widely and retain the stated-first copyright page, so the copyright-page statement alone establishes the printing but not an original, unrestored copy; the black cloth with red spine lettering plus the Walter Miles jacket must be present.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Montage of a Dream Deferred* by Langston Hughes a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/montage-of-a-dream-deferred
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.