# Is "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases" by Ida B. Wells a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells (New York Age Print, 1892) is identified by: Wells's first anti-lynching pamphlet was printed by the New York Age Print shop and published October 26, 1892, dedicated 'to the Afro-American women of New York and Brooklyn' who had raised funds for her at a Lyric Hall meeting on October 5, 1892.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Wells's first anti-lynching pamphlet was printed by the New York Age Print shop and published October 26, 1892, dedicated 'to the Afro-American women of New York and Brooklyn' who had raised funds for her at a Lyric Hall meeting on October 5, 1892
- The first printing collates 24 pages (24 cm)
- Much of its text had first appeared in expanded form as Wells's front-page piece 'Exiled,' published in the New York Age on June 25, 1892, about a month after a Memphis mob destroyed the press of her own paper, the Free Speech, having traced to Wells an earlier, separate unsigned Free Speech editorial that had questioned the rape pretext used to justify lynching
- Publisher imprint reads New York Age Print
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ida B. Wells |
| Publisher | New York Age Print |
| Year | 1892 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Wells's first anti-lynching pamphlet was printed by the New York Age Print shop and published October 26, 1892, dedicated 'to the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Wells's first anti-lynching pamphlet was printed by the New York Age Print shop and published October 26, 1892, dedicated 'to the Afro-American women of New York and Brooklyn' who had raised funds for her at a Lyric Hall meeting on October 5, 1892. The first printing collates 24 pages (24 cm). Much of its text had first appeared in expanded form as Wells's front-page piece 'Exiled,' published in the New York Age on June 25, 1892, about a month after a Memphis mob destroyed the press of her own paper, the Free Speech, having traced to Wells an earlier, separate unsigned Free Speech editorial that had questioned the rape pretext used to justify lynching.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Southern Horrors was reprinted in 1893 and 1894 as Wells continued her anti-lynching campaign; check later copies against the 24-page collation and the October 1892 New York Age Print imprint of the first issue, and note that most readers today encounter the text via 20th-century anthology reprints rather than a 19th-century pamphlet.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases* by Ida B. Wells a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/southern-horrors-lynch-law-in-all-its-phases
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.