# Is "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Poems, Chiefly Lyrical by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Effingham Wilson, 1830) is identified by: Tennyson's first solo-authored book, collating 154 pages of text, fifty-six poems, with a leaf of errata and no table of contents.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Tennyson's first solo-authored book, collating 154 pages of text, fifty-six poems, with a leaf of errata and no table of contents
- First state has page 91 misnumbered "19"; the errata leaf and a two-page publisher's advertisement at the end are called for in a complete copy
- A secondary state point is the correct spelling of "Carcanet" on page 72, since variant spellings were corrected at the printer before general publication and both readings can appear in copies described as first edition
- Publisher imprint reads Effingham Wilson
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
| Publisher | Effingham Wilson |
| Year | 1830 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | Tennyson's first solo-authored book, collating 154 pages of text, fifty-six poems, with a leaf of errata and no table of contents |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Tennyson's first solo-authored book, collating 154 pages of text, fifty-six poems, with a leaf of errata and no table of contents. First state has page 91 misnumbered "19"; the errata leaf and a two-page publisher's advertisement at the end are called for in a complete copy. A secondary state point is the correct spelling of "Carcanet" on page 72, since variant spellings were corrected at the printer before general publication and both readings can appear in copies described as first edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Tennyson later suppressed or heavily revised many of these fifty-six poems, and a number were never reprinted in his later collected volumes; a copy of a later nineteenth-century collected edition of Tennyson's Poems or Poetical Works is a different, revised book, not the 1830 Effingham Wilson first edition with its original errata leaf and boards.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Poems, Chiefly Lyrical* by Alfred, Lord Tennyson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/poems-chiefly-lyrical
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.