# Is "Old Jules" by Mari Sandoz a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Old Jules by Mari Sandoz (Little, Brown and Company, 1935) is identified by: First printing carries "First Published October, 1935" on the copyright page with no later printing noted below it. US Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1935 is the true first, issued as an Atlantic Monthly Press book after Old Jules won the Atlantic Monthly non-fiction prize for 1935 — Sandoz's first published book.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First printing carries "First Published October, 1935" on the copyright page with no later printing noted below it
- This matches Little, Brown's 1930s practice of stating "Published [month] [year]" on firsts and adding reprint lines on subsequent printings
- There is NO printing number row: Little, Brown did not adopt one until the late 1970s, so any listing citing a "number line" on a 1935 copy is in error and that claim is refuted here
- A December 1935 reprint followed within the same year, so the copyright-page line — not the 1935 date on its own — is the test
- Collation: octavo, [x], 424 pp., issued as "An Atlantic Monthly Press Book" through Little, Brown; frontispiece portrait of Old Jules plus photographic plates (about 20 photographs and facsimiles of people and scenes described in the text); bound in beige/tan cloth lettered in navy blue on cover and spine, blue topstain, illustrated endpapers
- A further binding point is reported — that the true first has lettering only on the front board while later 1935 printings add a portrait/illustration of Old Jules to the front board — and a documented second-printing copy with a front-cover illustration is consistent with it; promising, but single-sourced and recorded here as unconfirmed
- Publisher imprint reads Little, Brown and Company

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Mari Sandoz |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company |
| Year | 1935 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First printing carries "First Published October, 1935" on the copyright page with no later printing noted below it |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
First printing carries "First Published October, 1935" on the copyright page with no later printing noted below it. This matches Little, Brown's 1930s practice of stating "Published [month] [year]" on firsts and adding reprint lines on subsequent printings. There is NO printing number row: Little, Brown did not adopt one until the late 1970s, so any listing citing a "number line" on a 1935 copy is in error and that claim is refuted here. A December 1935 reprint followed within the same year, so the copyright-page line — not the 1935 date on its own — is the test. Collation: octavo, [x], 424 pp., issued as "An Atlantic Monthly Press Book" through Little, Brown; frontispiece portrait of Old Jules plus photographic plates (about 20 photographs and facsimiles of people and scenes described in the text); bound in beige/tan cloth lettered in navy blue on cover and spine, blue topstain, illustrated endpapers. A further binding point is reported — that the true first has lettering only on the front board while later 1935 printings add a portrait/illustration of Old Jules to the front board — and a documented second-printing copy with a front-cover illustration is consistent with it; promising, but single-sourced and recorded here as unconfirmed.

## Is this the true first?
US Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1935 is the true first, issued as an Atlantic Monthly Press book after Old Jules won the Atlantic Monthly non-fiction prize for 1935 — Sandoz's first published book. The census claim is correct. The first UK edition is Chapman and Hall, London, 1937, two years later: a reprint rather than a competing first, collected only as the first British appearance. A German-language issue (Atlantis Verlag, Zürich) is later still.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Blue Ribbon Books (New York) issued cheap reprints that retain the 1935 copyright date under their own imprint — the most common trap; identify by the imprint, not the date. A UK book-club issue is recorded from The Book Club, 121 Charing Cross Road, London W.C.2 (1937). Hastings House reissues (1955; the 1962 25th-anniversary printing in burnt sienna cloth with black spine lettering) and the University of Nebraska Press / Bison Books paperbacks are later reprints.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Old Jules* by Mari Sandoz a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/old-jules
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.