# Is "The Labyrinth of Solitude (El laberinto de la soledad)" by Octavio Paz a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Labyrinth of Solitude (El laberinto de la soledad) by Octavio Paz (Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos, 1950) is identified by: The true first is the 1950 Mexico City printing issued as número 16 in the Colección Cuadernos Americanos, with the title-page imprint "Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos, México, 1950." It is an octavo (described in the trade as "8o. The collectible true first is the 1950 Spanish-language book, Mexico City: Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos (Colección Cuadernos Americanos no.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the 1950 Mexico City printing issued as número 16 in the Colección Cuadernos Americanos, with the title-page imprint "Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos, México, 1950." It is an octavo (described in the trade as "8o. marquilla") of 195 pages plus one leaf, issued in original printed paper wrappers (rústica) with untrimmed edges ("sin refinar")
- Key identifiers: the "16" series number in the Cuadernos Americanos collection, the 1950 date with no statement of a later edition or printing, and the original wrappers
- Because copies commonly survive rebound in later hard covers (leather spine, in a slipcase), the presence of the original front wrapper bound in is a genuine authenticity/completeness point
- Note the 1950 text has only seven chapters plus an appendix; the eighth chapter ("Nuestros días") was not integrated until the 1959 revision, so a first edition should show the seven-chapter structure
- Publisher imprint reads Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Octavio Paz |
| Publisher | Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos |
| Year | 1950 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is the 1950 Mexico City printing issued as número 16 in the Colección Cuadernos Americanos, with the title-page imprint… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The true first is the 1950 Mexico City printing issued as número 16 in the Colección Cuadernos Americanos, with the title-page imprint "Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos, México, 1950." It is an octavo (described in the trade as "8o. marquilla") of 195 pages plus one leaf, issued in original printed paper wrappers (rústica) with untrimmed edges ("sin refinar"). Key identifiers: the "16" series number in the Cuadernos Americanos collection, the 1950 date with no statement of a later edition or printing, and the original wrappers. Because copies commonly survive rebound in later hard covers (leather spine, in a slipcase), the presence of the original front wrapper bound in is a genuine authenticity/completeness point. Note the 1950 text has only seven chapters plus an appendix; the eighth chapter ("Nuestros días") was not integrated until the 1959 revision, so a first edition should show the seven-chapter structure.

## Is this the true first?
The collectible true first is the 1950 Spanish-language book, Mexico City: Ediciones Cuadernos Americanos (Colección Cuadernos Americanos no. 16). Paz is celebrated foremost as a poet, and poetry collectors instead pursue Piedra de sol (Sunstone), 1957 — but El laberinto de la soledad is the single title most identified with him and the one general and prose collectors most want, so it is a sound signature choice. The first English-language edition is "The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico," translated by Lysander Kemp, New York: Grove Press, 1961 (stated first printing; unclipped jacket with its printed price; pre-ISBN); it was based on the revised and expanded second Spanish edition of 1959, not the 1950 text.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Chief trap is the 1959 Fondo de Cultura Económica second edition (issued in the "Vida y Pensamiento de México" series): it is substantially revised and expanded — it incorporates the "Nuestros días" material as a full eighth chapter — and is the standard/definitive TEXT most people read and cite, but it is the SECOND edition, not the collectible first. Later FCE printings (Colección Popular and the Lecturas Mexicanas series) are common reading copies. On the English side, the 1961 Grove Press first is the point of issue; later Grove reprints and the 1985 expanded Grove edition, "The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings" (which adds The Other Mexico, Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude, and further essays), are not the first. No prominent U.S. book-club edition of this title is documented in the sources reviewed; the likelier confusion is edition (1950 vs. 1959), not a book-club printing.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Labyrinth of Solitude (El laberinto de la soledad)* by Octavio Paz a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-labyrinth-of-solitude
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.