# Is "On the Border with Crook" by John G. Bourke a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of On the Border with Crook by John G. Bourke (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891) is identified by: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891, octavo, collating xiii, [3], 491, [5] pages, with a frontispiece portrait and text illustrations, bound in maroon cloth decorated in silver gilt with dark brown endpapers.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891, octavo, collating xiii, [3], 491, [5] pages, with a frontispiece portrait and text illustrations, bound in maroon cloth decorated in silver gilt with dark brown endpapers
- Bourke served as a captain in the Third Cavalry and as aide-de-camp to General George Crook through Crook's Arizona Territory campaigns against the Apache and his later Department of the Platte campaigns against the Sioux, and this memoir is a standard firsthand account of the Apache wars fought in the Arizona Territory in the 1870s and 1880s
- Bourke drew the narrative from journals he kept in the field, and it includes firsthand sketches of Crook and of adversaries he encountered on campaign, among them Geronimo, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse
- Publisher imprint reads Charles Scribner's Sons
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | John G. Bourke |
| Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons |
| Year | 1891 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891, octavo, collating xiii, [3], 491, [5] pages, with a frontispiece portrait and text illustrations… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891, octavo, collating xiii, [3], 491, [5] pages, with a frontispiece portrait and text illustrations, bound in maroon cloth decorated in silver gilt with dark brown endpapers. Bourke served as a captain in the Third Cavalry and as aide-de-camp to General George Crook through Crook's Arizona Territory campaigns against the Apache and his later Department of the Platte campaigns against the Sioux, and this memoir is a standard firsthand account of the Apache wars fought in the Arizona Territory in the 1870s and 1880s. Bourke drew the narrative from journals he kept in the field, and it includes firsthand sketches of Crook and of adversaries he encountered on campaign, among them Geronimo, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *On the Border with Crook* by John G. Bourke a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/on-the-border-with-crook
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.