# Is "The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems" by Richard Wilbur a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems by Richard Wilbur (Reynal & Hitchcock, New York, 1947) is identified by: The first edition is the Reynal & Hitchcock issue with a 1947-dated title page, small octavo, 55 pages, in a printed dust jacket; ABAA dealers uniformly record a first printing of only 750 copies, and the book is catalogued as Field A.1 in John P. US only.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first edition is the Reynal & Hitchcock issue with a 1947-dated title page, small octavo, 55 pages, in a printed dust jacket
- ABAA dealers uniformly record a first printing of only 750 copies, and the book is catalogued as Field A.1 in John P. Field's Wilbur bibliography
- Reynal & Hitchcock carried no formal edition statement here, so identification rests on the imprint and date rather than on a printing line — any Harcourt, Brace imprint is by definition later
- CAUTION — cloth color is not reliably established: cataloguers variously describe the binding as light green cloth with dark green lettering, tan cloth, and cloth with blue lettering to the spine; treat binding color as unresolved and do not use it as a decisive point until a copy is collated against Field
- Jacket present and priced at the flap on unclipped copies; identification only
- Publisher imprint reads Reynal & Hitchcock, New York
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Richard Wilbur |
| Publisher | Reynal & Hitchcock, New York |
| Year | 1947 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | The first edition is the Reynal & Hitchcock issue with a 1947-dated title page, small octavo, 55 pages, in a printed dust jacket |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The first edition is the Reynal & Hitchcock issue with a 1947-dated title page, small octavo, 55 pages, in a printed dust jacket; ABAA dealers uniformly record a first printing of only 750 copies, and the book is catalogued as Field A.1 in John P. Field's Wilbur bibliography. Reynal & Hitchcock carried no formal edition statement here, so identification rests on the imprint and date rather than on a printing line — any Harcourt, Brace imprint is by definition later. CAUTION — cloth color is not reliably established: cataloguers variously describe the binding as light green cloth with dark green lettering, tan cloth, and cloth with blue lettering to the spine; treat binding color as unresolved and do not use it as a decisive point until a copy is collated against Field. Jacket present and priced at the flap on unclipped copies; identification only.

## Is this the true first?
US only. Reynal & Hitchcock, New York, 1947 is the true first and the sole first edition — this was Wilbur's first book and no simultaneous or near-contemporaneous British edition was published. Wilbur's first UK book was the later Faber and Faber (London) collection Poems 1943-1956, in 1957, which is a separate selected volume and not an edition of The Beautiful Changes. The census claim of US-only precedence is confirmed.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition documented for this title. The principal reprint trap is the Harcourt, Brace and Company issue: Harcourt acquired Reynal & Hitchcock and brought out the first reprinting — an undated printing of roughly 1,000 copies from August 1954, recorded in blue cloth (Field A.1.[1.2]). Any copy bearing the Harcourt, Brace imprint, or an undated title page, is the 1954 second printing and not the first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems* by Richard Wilbur a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-beautiful-changes-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.