# Is "Sylvie and Bruno" by Lewis Carroll a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll (Macmillan and Co., 1889) is identified by: Octavo, collating xxiii, [1], 400pp, with forty-six illustrations (ten full-page) by Harry Furniss and a tissue-guarded frontispiece. Sylvie and Bruno (1889) is the first of two volumes; the story concludes in the separate Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (Macmillan, 1893), catalogued by Williams, Madan & Green as entry 250.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Octavo, collating xxiii, [1], 400pp, with forty-six illustrations (ten full-page) by Harry Furniss and a tissue-guarded frontispiece
- The standard Carroll bibliography (Williams, Madan & Green, The Lewis Carroll Handbook) catalogues the first edition as entry 217
- The publisher's first-edition binding is full red cloth: boards ruled in a triple gilt frame with a gilt medallion illustration to the front and rear panels, spine lettered in gilt, and all edges gilt
- Publisher imprint reads Macmillan and Co.
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Lewis Carroll |
| Publisher | Macmillan and Co. |
| Year | 1889 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Octavo, collating xxiii, [1], 400pp, with forty-six illustrations (ten full-page) by Harry Furniss and a tissue-guarded frontispiece |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Octavo, collating xxiii, [1], 400pp, with forty-six illustrations (ten full-page) by Harry Furniss and a tissue-guarded frontispiece. The standard Carroll bibliography (Williams, Madan & Green, The Lewis Carroll Handbook) catalogues the first edition as entry 217. The publisher's first-edition binding is full red cloth: boards ruled in a triple gilt frame with a gilt medallion illustration to the front and rear panels, spine lettered in gilt, and all edges gilt.

## Is this the true first?
Sylvie and Bruno (1889) is the first of two volumes; the story concludes in the separate Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (Macmillan, 1893), catalogued by Williams, Madan & Green as entry 250. The two volumes were issued nearly four years apart and were never published as a single first-edition unit.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Sylvie and Bruno* by Lewis Carroll a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/sylvie-and-bruno
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.