# Is "Not Without Laughter" by Langston Hughes a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes (Alfred A. Knopf, 1930) is identified by: The true first is Alfred A. US Knopf 1930 is the true first (Hughes's first novel); the London issue is the same Knopf publication, not a separate press.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is Alfred A. Knopf, 1930 (title page "New York and London"), Hughes's first novel, 326 pp., bound in tan cloth stamped in dark brown and green with a decorative border; a scarce pictorial dust jacket (attributed by dealers to Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas) was issued and is now seldom found
- The copyright page of the first edition reads "First and Second Printing Before Publication — July, 1930"; two dealers independently corroborate the tan cloth and this wording
- CAUTION on a common conflation: claims of an "Amy Spingarn frontispiece printed on Dard Hunter handmade paper" belong to Hughes's separate 1931 Troutbeck Press book Dear Lovely Death (100 copies) and must NOT be used to identify this trade novel
- Note also the Knopf-era ambiguity: because printings one and two were both run before publication and share the same statement, they are generally indistinguishable, and copies lacking the statement are later printings
- Publisher imprint reads Alfred A. Knopf
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Langston Hughes |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Year | 1930 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is Alfred A. Knopf, 1930 (title page "New York and London"), Hughes's first novel, 326 pp., bound in tan cloth stamped in… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
The true first is Alfred A. Knopf, 1930 (title page "New York and London"), Hughes's first novel, 326 pp., bound in tan cloth stamped in dark brown and green with a decorative border; a scarce pictorial dust jacket (attributed by dealers to Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas) was issued and is now seldom found. The copyright page of the first edition reads "First and Second Printing Before Publication — July, 1930"; two dealers independently corroborate the tan cloth and this wording. CAUTION on a common conflation: claims of an "Amy Spingarn frontispiece printed on Dard Hunter handmade paper" belong to Hughes's separate 1931 Troutbeck Press book Dear Lovely Death (100 copies) and must NOT be used to identify this trade novel. Note also the Knopf-era ambiguity: because printings one and two were both run before publication and share the same statement, they are generally indistinguishable, and copies lacking the statement are later printings.

## Is this the true first?
US Knopf 1930 is the true first (Hughes's first novel); the London issue is the same Knopf publication, not a separate press. English-language original; US precedes.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Copies without the "First and Second Printing Before Publication — July, 1930" line are later printings. Watch the Dard Hunter / Amy Spingarn frontispiece conflation with Dear Lovely Death (1931). No separate first-printing dust-jacket price point could be confirmed given the jacket's rarity.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Not Without Laughter* by Langston Hughes a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/not-without-laughter
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.