# Is "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) (Totem Press / Corinth Books, New York, 1961) is identified by: Totem Press in association with Corinth Books, New York, 1961 (recorded as June 1961); a chapbook in stapled wrappers, octavo, 47 pages, in white wrappers with cover illustration by Basil King. US only.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Totem Press in association with Corinth Books, New York, 1961 (recorded as June 1961); a chapbook in stapled wrappers, octavo, 47 pages, in white wrappers with cover illustration by Basil King
- Jones's first book, collecting poems of 1957-60, dedicated to his then-wife Hettie Jones
- The copyright page carries NO first-edition statement — cataloguers are explicit that the first edition is 'not explicated as such at copyright page' — so identification rests entirely on issue points, not on a printing line
- The first printing/first issue is identified by the advertisements on the last page being set in bold capitals, together with the price printed on the rear wrapper (identification only; no amount recorded here)
- A reported further distinction — the first issue being slightly larger and bulkier than later issues, and later issues giving the publisher's address on the title page as 17 West Eighth Street, New York — appears in circulating dealer copy but is corroborated by only a single source and should be treated as unconfirmed pending collation
- Publisher imprint reads Totem Press / Corinth Books, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) |
| Publisher | Totem Press / Corinth Books, New York |
| Year | 1961 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | Totem Press in association with Corinth Books, New York, 1961 (recorded as June 1961); a chapbook in stapled wrappers, octavo, 47 pages, in… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Totem Press in association with Corinth Books, New York, 1961 (recorded as June 1961); a chapbook in stapled wrappers, octavo, 47 pages, in white wrappers with cover illustration by Basil King. Jones's first book, collecting poems of 1957-60, dedicated to his then-wife Hettie Jones. The copyright page carries NO first-edition statement — cataloguers are explicit that the first edition is 'not explicated as such at copyright page' — so identification rests entirely on issue points, not on a printing line. The first printing/first issue is identified by the advertisements on the last page being set in bold capitals, together with the price printed on the rear wrapper (identification only; no amount recorded here). A reported further distinction — the first issue being slightly larger and bulkier than later issues, and later issues giving the publisher's address on the title page as 17 West Eighth Street, New York — appears in circulating dealer copy but is corroborated by only a single source and should be treated as unconfirmed pending collation.

## Is this the true first?
US only. Totem Press / Corinth Books, New York, 1961 is the true first and the sole first edition, issued in wrappers only — no clothbound issue of the first is documented, and no British or other-language edition preceded or accompanied it. Totem Press was founded and run by Jones himself; in late 1960 it allied with Corinth Books, the small press of Eli and Ted Wilentz of the Eighth Street Bookshop, which is why the joint imprint appears. The census claim of a US-only wrappered first is confirmed.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition documented — this is a wrappered small-press chapbook. The title went through many printings under the same imprint and in the same format, with a fifth printing recorded in 1969 and a sixth in 1970, and these later printings are the standing trap: they carry the same 1961 copyright and the same Basil King cover, and are separated from the first chiefly by the bold-capitals last-page advertisement setting and the rear-wrapper price. A later Corinth Books issue also circulates under ISBN 0870910485. Because no first-edition statement exists, any copy offered as a first on the basis of the copyright page alone is unverified.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note* by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/preface-to-a-twenty-volume-suicide-note
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.