# Is "The Complete Poems 1927-1979" by Elizabeth Bishop a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Complete Poems 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983) is identified by: First collected and complete edition, published posthumously. The US FSG issue (1983) is the true first of this collected volume; the individual earlier collections have their own separate firsts.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First collected and complete edition, published posthumously
- Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983; first printing identified by the FSG first-printing/first-edition statement with the year on the copyright page (FSG in this period used wording such as First printing or First edition followed by the year)
- Green cloth in an orange dust jacket designed by Cynthia Krupat
- Publisher imprint reads Farrar, Straus & Giroux
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Elizabeth Bishop |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
| Year | 1983 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First collected and complete edition, published posthumously |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First collected and complete edition, published posthumously. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983; first printing identified by the FSG first-printing/first-edition statement with the year on the copyright page (FSG in this period used wording such as First printing or First edition followed by the year). Green cloth in an orange dust jacket designed by Cynthia Krupat.

## Is this the true first?
The US FSG issue (1983) is the true first of this collected volume; the individual earlier collections have their own separate firsts.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book club issue of note; later printings drop the first-printing statement.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Complete Poems 1927-1979* by Elizabeth Bishop a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-complete-poems-1927-1979
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.