# Is "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (Doubleday, Page & Company, 1906) is identified by: Published 28 February 1906, after serialisation in Appeal to Reason (25 February - 4 November 1905). US 1906.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Published 28 February 1906, after serialisation in Appeal to Reason (25 February - 4 November 1905)
- Two imprints were issued simultaneously from the SAME plates and both are first editions: the trade issue of Doubleday, Page & Company and Sinclair's own subscriber issue under The Jungle Publishing Co
- The decisive text point on the Doubleday, Page trade issue is the "1" in the "1906" date on the copyright page in perfect, unbroken type — later states show a broken or battered "1" — together with the Doubleday imprint on the title page and "Published February, 1906" on the copyright page
- Collation: octavo, pp. [1-10] 1-413 [414: blank] [415-417: ads] [418: blank], the first leaf a blank
- Bound in original pictorial olive-green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black and white; the white spine lettering has commonly perished
- Precedence within the first printing turns on the title leaf and the label: L. W. Currey gives the earliest copies as the Jungle Publishing copies with an INTEGRAL title leaf and the "SUSTAINER'S EDITION" label on the front paste-down, while Doubleday, Page copies with TIPPED-IN title leaves precede Jungle's regular (non-Sustainer's) copies
- Publisher imprint reads Doubleday, Page & Company

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Upton Sinclair |
| Publisher | Doubleday, Page & Company |
| Year | 1906 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Published 28 February 1906, after serialisation in Appeal to Reason (25 February - 4 November 1905) |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Published 28 February 1906, after serialisation in Appeal to Reason (25 February - 4 November 1905). Two imprints were issued simultaneously from the SAME plates and both are first editions: the trade issue of Doubleday, Page & Company and Sinclair's own subscriber issue under The Jungle Publishing Co. The decisive text point on the Doubleday, Page trade issue is the "1" in the "1906" date on the copyright page in perfect, unbroken type — later states show a broken or battered "1" — together with the Doubleday imprint on the title page and "Published February, 1906" on the copyright page. Collation: octavo, pp. [1-10] 1-413 [414: blank] [415-417: ads] [418: blank], the first leaf a blank. Bound in original pictorial olive-green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black and white; the white spine lettering has commonly perished. Precedence within the first printing turns on the title leaf and the label: L. W. Currey gives the earliest copies as the Jungle Publishing copies with an INTEGRAL title leaf and the "SUSTAINER'S EDITION" label on the front paste-down, while Doubleday, Page copies with TIPPED-IN title leaves precede Jungle's regular (non-Sustainer's) copies. Type-wear evidence indicates the Doubleday sheets were run off first. The Jungle Publishing copies — c. 5,000 — carry the Socialist Party symbol embossed on the cover.

## Is this the true first?
US 1906. The census is right that both the Doubleday, Page trade issue and Sinclair's simultaneous Jungle Publishing Co. "Sustainer's Edition" — printed from the same plates and published the same day — count as firsts, and both are collected. The census understates the nuance: per Currey the Sustainer's Edition with an integral title leaf ranks EARLIEST of all, above the Doubleday, Page copies, which in turn precede Jungle's regular copies. CORRECTION TO CENSUS: the claimed "UK Heinemann 1906" first English edition could NOT be corroborated — no bibliography, dealer catalogue, or reference consulted (Currey, Biblioctopus, Charles Agvent, plus Wikipedia and Britannica as pointers) described a Heinemann London edition, and a targeted search for both Heinemann and T. Werner Laurie returned nothing. Treat the UK attribution as unverified pending a BAL or British Library check, and do not publish the Heinemann claim. Sinclair wrote in English, so no original-language question arises.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No 1906 book-club issue is documented. The reprint traps are Sinclair's own four later self-published editions (1920, 1935, 1942 and 1945), any of which can be mistaken for an "author's edition" first given that the Jungle Publishing Co. first is itself author-published, plus the ubiquitous later trade reprints. The "1" in the copyright-page date is the working check: broken or battered type means a later state, not the first printing. Absence of the pictorial olive-green cloth, or a title leaf that is neither integral (Sustainer's) nor correctly tipped-in (Doubleday, Page), likewise rules out the first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Jungle* by Upton Sinclair a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-jungle
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.