# Is "Tent Life in Siberia, and Adventures among the Koraks and Other Tribes in Kamtchatka and Northern Asia" by George Kennan a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Tent Life in Siberia, and Adventures among the Koraks and Other Tribes in Kamtchatka and Northern Asia by George Kennan (G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1870) is identified by: The true first edition collates ix, 425 pages plus two pages of publisher's advertisements, small octavo, bound in original decorated brown cloth with light brown endpapers, and includes a folding map as frontispiece.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first edition collates ix, 425 pages plus two pages of publisher's advertisements, small octavo, bound in original decorated brown cloth with light brown endpapers, and includes a folding map as frontispiece
- The title page carries a joint imprint — G. P. Putnam & Sons of New York and S. Low, Son & Marston of London — identifying this printing as a single Anglo-American first edition rather than two separately typeset national editions
- It recounts Kennan's survey, begun when he departed for Siberia in 1865, of a proposed overland route for the Russian-American Telegraph Company through Kamchatka and Siberia, and established Kennan as an American authority on Russia and Siberia years before his later, more famous reporting on the Russian exile system
- Publisher imprint reads G. P. Putnam & Sons
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | George Kennan |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam & Sons |
| Year | 1870 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first edition collates ix, 425 pages plus two pages of publisher's advertisements, small octavo, bound in original decorated brown… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
The true first edition collates ix, 425 pages plus two pages of publisher's advertisements, small octavo, bound in original decorated brown cloth with light brown endpapers, and includes a folding map as frontispiece. The title page carries a joint imprint — G. P. Putnam & Sons of New York and S. Low, Son & Marston of London — identifying this printing as a single Anglo-American first edition rather than two separately typeset national editions. It recounts Kennan's survey, begun when he departed for Siberia in 1865, of a proposed overland route for the Russian-American Telegraph Company through Kamchatka and Siberia, and established Kennan as an American authority on Russia and Siberia years before his later, more famous reporting on the Russian exile system.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Kennan substantially revised and expanded the book as Tent-Life in Siberia: A New Account of an Old Undertaking, issued by Putnam as a 'second edition' in 1910 with more than fifteen thousand words of new material and roughly two dozen added photographic plates alongside seven paintings by expedition member George A. Frost; this later revised text, not the plain 1870 Putnam first, is what is often encountered in reprints.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Tent Life in Siberia, and Adventures among the Koraks and Other Tribes in Kamtchatka and Northern Asia* by George Kennan a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/tent-life-in-siberia-and-adventures-among-the-koraks-and-oth
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.