# Is "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (Pantheon Books / Bollingen Series XVII, 1949) is identified by: Pantheon Books, New York, 1949, issued as Bollingen Series XVII — the seventeenth volume sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation, which holds the copyright. US only.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Pantheon Books, New York, 1949, issued as Bollingen Series XVII — the seventeenth volume sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation, which holds the copyright
- Collation xxiii + 416 pp
- (a few dealers collate xxiv + 416), illustrated with textual drawings and plates
- The binding is a distinctive two-tone cloth in black and green with gilt spine lettering; dealers describe it variously as black cloth over green boards, green cloth with a black spine, or simply 'two-tone cloth', but a copy in a single colour of cloth is not the 1949 issue
- Pantheon/Bollingen gave the first printing no 'first edition' statement, so identification is by the 1949 date together with a copyright page free of any later-printing or later-edition notice; subsequent printings are stated, and the revised text is dated 'Second Edition, 1968'
- The jacket should be present, and unclipped copies retain the price at the flap
- Publisher imprint reads Pantheon Books / Bollingen Series XVII

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Joseph Campbell |
| Publisher | Pantheon Books / Bollingen Series XVII |
| Year | 1949 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Pantheon Books, New York, 1949, issued as Bollingen Series XVII — the seventeenth volume sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation, which holds… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Pantheon Books, New York, 1949, issued as Bollingen Series XVII — the seventeenth volume sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation, which holds the copyright. Collation xxiii + 416 pp. (a few dealers collate xxiv + 416), illustrated with textual drawings and plates. The binding is a distinctive two-tone cloth in black and green with gilt spine lettering; dealers describe it variously as black cloth over green boards, green cloth with a black spine, or simply 'two-tone cloth', but a copy in a single colour of cloth is not the 1949 issue. Pantheon/Bollingen gave the first printing no 'first edition' statement, so identification is by the 1949 date together with a copyright page free of any later-printing or later-edition notice; subsequent printings are stated, and the revised text is dated 'Second Edition, 1968'. The jacket should be present, and unclipped copies retain the price at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
US only. Pantheon Books, New York, 1949 (Bollingen Series XVII) is the true first. No 1949 British edition appears in any catalogue or dealer database consulted — the earliest UK appearances located are much later paperback lines (Paladin, then Fontana/HarperCollins, 1993) — so there is no UK-first competitor to name. The book was written in English.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is documented for the 1949 Bollingen issue. The 'first thus' traps are numerous and frequently mis-listed as firsts: the Meridian Books paperback (M22, 1956); Campbell's own revised second edition of 1968; the Princeton University Press/Bollingen reissues, which carry the same 'Bollingen Series XVII' line and mislead by it; and the 2008 third edition from New World Library in the Collected Works. Any copy whose copyright page names Princeton University Press or New World Library is a later edition however the series statement reads.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Hero with a Thousand Faces* by Joseph Campbell a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-hero-with-a-thousand-faces
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.