# Is "Ozma of Oz" by L. Frank Baum (illus. John R. Neill) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum (illus. John R. Neill) (The Reilly & Britton Co., 1907) is identified by: No edition statement appears; identification rests on state points alone. US-only original, and the census claim is correct: Chicago: The Reilly & Britton Co., 1907, illustrated by John R.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- No edition statement appears; identification rests on state points alone
- First printing has the full-colour illustration on page 221 printed in colour — it appears in black and white in slightly later printings from roughly 1911 — and uses colour text illustrations worked into the letterpress rather than inserted colour plates
- First binding is light tan cloth over boards, stamped in red, black, yellow and blue, with the publisher's name at the spine tail reading "The Reilly & Britton Co."; the retained "Co." after the name is the first-binding point
- Full-colour pictorial endpapers are present (blank in later editions)
- Rear advertisements offer only two other Baum titles, The Land of Oz and John Dough and the Cherub
- Two points are disputed and should not be relied on alone: sources conflict on the much-cited "O" in "Ozma" — some place it at page 11 in the Author's Note with the "O" present on the earliest copies, others at page 111 line 5 with the "O" absent — and the Bibliographia Oziana page cited differs between sources (38 vs 50); the leaves at 135/136 and 153/154 are described as cancels by one dealer and as integral by another
- Publisher imprint reads The Reilly & Britton Co.

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | L. Frank Baum (illus. John R. Neill) |
| Publisher | The Reilly & Britton Co. |
| Year | 1907 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | No edition statement appears; identification rests on state points alone |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
No edition statement appears; identification rests on state points alone. First printing has the full-colour illustration on page 221 printed in colour — it appears in black and white in slightly later printings from roughly 1911 — and uses colour text illustrations worked into the letterpress rather than inserted colour plates. First binding is light tan cloth over boards, stamped in red, black, yellow and blue, with the publisher's name at the spine tail reading "The Reilly & Britton Co."; the retained "Co." after the name is the first-binding point. Full-colour pictorial endpapers are present (blank in later editions). Rear advertisements offer only two other Baum titles, The Land of Oz and John Dough and the Cherub. Two points are disputed and should not be relied on alone: sources conflict on the much-cited "O" in "Ozma" — some place it at page 11 in the Author's Note with the "O" present on the earliest copies, others at page 111 line 5 with the "O" absent — and the Bibliographia Oziana page cited differs between sources (38 vs 50); the leaves at 135/136 and 153/154 are described as cancels by one dealer and as integral by another. Dust jacket points are not documented in the sources consulted.

## Is this the true first?
US-only original, and the census claim is correct: Chicago: The Reilly & Britton Co., 1907, illustrated by John R. Neill — the third Oz book. Baum wrote in English for an American publisher, so there is no competing UK or original-language edition with precedence, and no simultaneous transatlantic issue is at stake.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book club edition is involved at this date. The dominant reprint tell is the imprint: Reilly & Britton became Reilly & Lee in 1919, so any copy bearing the Reilly & Lee imprint is a later printing regardless of the 1907 copyright date carried over on the page. Within the Reilly & Britton period, later printings lose the colour on page 221 (black and white from about 1911) and the colour pictorial endpapers go blank. Copies offered as "first edition, later colour state" are common — the state, not the date on the copyright page, decides.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Ozma of Oz* by L. Frank Baum (illus. John R. Neill) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/ozma-of-oz
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.