# Is "My People the Sioux" by Luther Standing Bear a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of My People the Sioux by Luther Standing Bear (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928) is identified by: First printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1928; edited by E. Census claim confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1928; edited by E. A. Brininstool, with an introduction by William S. Hart
- Collates xiv, 288 pp., with a frontispiece portrait of Chief Standing Bear and illustrations from the author's own drawings and from photographs
- Houghton Mifflin used no printing statement in 1928; the documented house test is the date in Arabic numerals on the title page, present on first printings and removed on subsequent printings — so a first shows 1928 on the title page matching the 1928 copyright, with no later-printing notice
- (HM only began adding a "First Printing" line to the copyright page in the late 1950s, and a number row in the early 1970s; their absence here is expected and is not evidence against a first.) Reported bound in decorated tan/beige cloth with brown lettering to the front cover and spine — a single-dealer description, and binding colour is not a printing point
- No jacket points and no first-state text errors are documented in the sources consulted; do not assume any
- Publisher imprint reads Houghton Mifflin Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Luther Standing Bear |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin Company |
| Year | 1928 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1928; edited by E. A. Brininstool, with an introduction by William S. Hart |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First printing: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1928; edited by E. A. Brininstool, with an introduction by William S. Hart. Collates xiv, 288 pp., with a frontispiece portrait of Chief Standing Bear and illustrations from the author's own drawings and from photographs. Houghton Mifflin used no printing statement in 1928; the documented house test is the date in Arabic numerals on the title page, present on first printings and removed on subsequent printings — so a first shows 1928 on the title page matching the 1928 copyright, with no later-printing notice. (HM only began adding a "First Printing" line to the copyright page in the late 1950s, and a number row in the early 1970s; their absence here is expected and is not evidence against a first.) Reported bound in decorated tan/beige cloth with brown lettering to the front cover and spine — a single-dealer description, and binding colour is not a printing point. No jacket points and no first-state text errors are documented in the sources consulted; do not assume any.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim confirmed. US first; Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1928. Written in English for American publication; no British edition and no original-language edition precedes it in the sources consulted, so there is no UK/US or translation precedence question — the 1928 Houghton Mifflin is the sole first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue documented. The ubiquitous reprints are University of Nebraska Press / Bison Books paperbacks (1975, and a later issue with an introduction by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve) — "first thus" at best. Any ISBN, added modern introduction, or Bison/Nebraska imprint rules out the 1928 first. Later Houghton Mifflin printings drop the date from the title page, which is the primary reprint tell within the publisher's own run.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *My People the Sioux* by Luther Standing Bear a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/my-people-the-sioux
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.