# Is "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (Doubleday, Page & Company, New York, 1906) is identified by: The true first of the text is The Cynic's Word Book: copyright filed 30 August 1906, published October 1906 by Doubleday, Page & Company, New York; BAL 1124; octavo, collating [vi], 233, [1] pp. Both editions named in the census claim are collected and the claim is correct.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first of the text is The Cynic's Word Book: copyright filed 30 August 1906, published October 1906 by Doubleday, Page & Company, New York
- BAL 1124; octavo, collating [vi], 233, [1] pp
- (some cataloguers give vi, 234)
- BAL records the sheets in two states with NO priority established, so neither is 'the' first state: BAL State A has no printer's imprint on the copyright page, is issued without a frontispiece, and has the leaves of the spine ornament stemming downward
- The binding is publisher's decorated cloth — variously described by cataloguers as dark olive or brown — lettered in red with red and black decoration and top edges gilt
- Note the scale: Doubleday printed and bound 1,341 copies (147 to the author and reviewers, 1,070 sold, the balance remaindered), and the text runs only A through L, with 521 definitions
- Publisher imprint reads Doubleday, Page & Company, New York

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ambrose Bierce |
| Publisher | Doubleday, Page & Company, New York |
| Year | 1906 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first of the text is The Cynic's Word Book: copyright filed 30 August 1906, published October 1906 by Doubleday, Page & Company… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
The true first of the text is The Cynic's Word Book: copyright filed 30 August 1906, published October 1906 by Doubleday, Page & Company, New York; BAL 1124; octavo, collating [vi], 233, [1] pp. (some cataloguers give vi, 234). BAL records the sheets in two states with NO priority established, so neither is 'the' first state: BAL State A has no printer's imprint on the copyright page, is issued without a frontispiece, and has the leaves of the spine ornament stemming downward. The binding is publisher's decorated cloth — variously described by cataloguers as dark olive or brown — lettered in red with red and black decoration and top edges gilt. Note the scale: Doubleday printed and bound 1,341 copies (147 to the author and reviewers, 1,070 sold, the balance remaindered), and the text runs only A through L, with 521 definitions.

## Is this the true first?
Both editions named in the census claim are collected and the claim is correct. (1) The Cynic's Word Book, Doubleday, Page & Company, New York, 1906 — the first book form of the material, but only A-L; Bierce wanted the Devil's Dictionary title and the publisher refused it. (2) The Devil's Dictionary, The Neale Publishing Company, New York and Washington, 1911, being volume VII of The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — the first appearance under the famous title and the first complete alphabet, with 1,013 definitions, sold principally as twelve-volume sets (Neale advertised 250 numbered full-leather sets with volume I signed by Bierce, a few half-morocco sets, and the bulk in cloth; surviving royalty statements show far smaller actual sales). PRECEDENCE TRAP: the London edition from Arthur F. Bird carries a title page dated 1906 but was published in June 1907 from the American plates — a Bird copy is not the true first despite the 1906 date.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The first widely available trade printing under the Devil's Dictionary title is Albert & Charles Boni, New York, 1925 (reissued 1926, 1935, 1944). It is the first reprint after Neale and is frequently mis-described as a first edition — it is not; it postdates the 1911 Neale Collected Works volume VII by fourteen years. Likewise the 1907 Arthur F. Bird (London) issue and all Cynic's Word Book copies with a printer's imprint on the copyright page fall outside BAL State A. Modern 'Unabridged Devil's Dictionary' editions (from the Joshi/Schultz scholarly recovery) are new editorial texts, not reprints of either first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Devil's Dictionary* by Ambrose Bierce a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-devils-dictionary
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.