# Is "Renascence and Other Poems" by Edna St. Vincent Millay a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1917) is identified by: First edition, Yost 3: Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1917 — Millay's first book, printed by Vail-Ballou of Binghamton, New York. US-only original; Millay wrote in English and there is no competing UK or original-language edition.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, Yost 3: Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1917 — Millay's first book, printed by Vail-Ballou of Binghamton, New York
- 12mo, [vi], 73 pp., in publisher's black cloth lettered in gilt on the spine and on the upper cover, edges untrimmed/deckled
- There is no printing statement and no number line; the issue is decided by the paper, not the title page
- FIRST ISSUE: leaves watermarked 'AGM Glaslan', deckle-edged, with the blank leaves present at front and back (a blank preceding the half-title)
- SECOND ISSUE of the same printing: leaves watermarked 'MBM', the front and rear blanks absent, and punctuation corrected
- A further variant on laid paper watermarked 'MB' is recorded
- Publisher imprint reads Mitchell Kennerley, New York

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Edna St. Vincent Millay |
| Publisher | Mitchell Kennerley, New York |
| Year | 1917 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, Yost 3: Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1917 — Millay's first book, printed by Vail-Ballou of Binghamton, New York |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, Yost 3: Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1917 — Millay's first book, printed by Vail-Ballou of Binghamton, New York. 12mo, [vi], 73 pp., in publisher's black cloth lettered in gilt on the spine and on the upper cover, edges untrimmed/deckled. There is no printing statement and no number line; the issue is decided by the paper, not the title page. FIRST ISSUE: leaves watermarked 'AGM Glaslan', deckle-edged, with the blank leaves present at front and back (a blank preceding the half-title). SECOND ISSUE of the same printing: leaves watermarked 'MBM', the front and rear blanks absent, and punctuation corrected. A further variant on laid paper watermarked 'MB' is recorded. Hold a leaf to the light — that is the whole test, and dealers who omit the watermark from a description have not done it. The jacket is very scarce and most copies are offered without one; refer to it only as: priced jacket / price present at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
US-only original; Millay wrote in English and there is no competing UK or original-language edition. The census is confirmed on publisher, year and the Glaslan-watermark first-issue point. The census's further claim of '15 large-paper copies' is REFUTED — no source located corroborates any large-paper or limitation issue of this book, and no dealer or auction description examined records a limitation page. The claim appears to conflate this title with the separate limited printing of 'Renascence: A Poem', a small signed printing variously reported at roughly 126 to 186 copies, which is a different publication. It is not repeated here. Separately, the title poem had appeared earlier in the anthology The Lyric Year (Mitchell Kennerley, 1912): that is first-in-print for 'Renascence', but it is not the book.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented. The reprint tell is the imprint: Harper & Brothers took Millay over and reissued the collection, so any Harper copy is a reprint however the date reads — dealers state the point as 'published by Kennerley (not Harper)'. Within Kennerley copies, the MBM and MB watermarks and the missing front/rear blanks mark the later issues of the first printing, not a later edition. Modern facsimile and print-on-demand copies of the 1917 sheets circulate and carry modern ISBNs.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Renascence and Other Poems* by Edna St. Vincent Millay a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/renascence-and-other-poems
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.