# Is "Piedra de sol (Sunstone)" by Octavio Paz a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Piedra de sol (Sunstone) by Octavio Paz (Tezontle / Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 1957) is identified by: The true first is the Mexican original: Mexico City, colección Tezontle of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, dated 28 September 1957, in a slim wrappered cuaderno (dealer collation 44 pp.). Spanish is the original language and the Tezontle 1957 separate printing precedes every translation and every later collection.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the Mexican original: Mexico City, colección Tezontle of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, dated 28 September 1957, in a slim wrappered cuaderno (dealer collation 44 pp.)
- The identifying evidence is the colophon and Tezontle series imprint, not any printing statement: the first run was 300 copies, and Alí Chumacero had charge of the edition
- A textual point internal to the first edition: the poem runs to 584 hendecasyllables, a count Paz states in this first edition to match the synodic period of Venus
- One ABAA/ILAB dealer describes a numbered copy signed by Paz (number 157 of the run); numbering/signing is recorded on that copy but is not independently corroborated as applying to the whole issue and should not be treated as a required point
- The census claim (Tezontle/FCE, Mexico City, 1957, about 300 copies) is confirmed
- Publisher imprint reads Tezontle / Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Octavio Paz |
| Publisher | Tezontle / Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City |
| Year | 1957 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | The true first is the Mexican original: Mexico City, colección Tezontle of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, dated 28 September 1957, in a… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The true first is the Mexican original: Mexico City, colección Tezontle of the Fondo de Cultura Económica, dated 28 September 1957, in a slim wrappered cuaderno (dealer collation 44 pp.). The identifying evidence is the colophon and Tezontle series imprint, not any printing statement: the first run was 300 copies, and Alí Chumacero had charge of the edition. A textual point internal to the first edition: the poem runs to 584 hendecasyllables, a count Paz states in this first edition to match the synodic period of Venus. One ABAA/ILAB dealer describes a numbered copy signed by Paz (number 157 of the run); numbering/signing is recorded on that copy but is not independently corroborated as applying to the whole issue and should not be treated as a required point. The census claim (Tezontle/FCE, Mexico City, 1957, about 300 copies) is confirmed.

## Is this the true first?
Spanish is the original language and the Tezontle 1957 separate printing precedes every translation and every later collection. The first English is a distinct collected edition and should be named: 'Sun Stone', translated by Muriel Rukeyser, New Directions (World Poets Series), New York, 1962 — issued in printed wrappers only, no cloth edition was published, which is itself the format point. Peter Miller's 'Sun-Stone' (Contact Press, Toronto, 1963) follows and is not the first English. Both the Tezontle 1957 and the New Directions 1962 are collected in their own right.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented. The principal trap is the Fondo de Cultura Económica 50th-anniversary FACSIMILE of the 1957 edition, published 2007 — it reproduces the original and is routinely mistaken for it; check for the 2007 facsimile statement. Documented later editions that are 'first thus' only include UNAM (1977), Gobierno del Distrito Federal (1990), and Instituto Vasco-Mexicano de Desarrollo (1997), as well as the poem's appearance within Paz's later collected volumes.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Piedra de sol (Sunstone)* by Octavio Paz a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/piedra-de-sol-sunstone
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.