# Is "The Log of a Cowboy" by Andy Adams a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Log of a Cowboy by Andy Adams (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903) is identified by: First printing has 1903 on BOTH the title page and the copyright page and carries no impression statement. US Houghton, Mifflin and Company (Boston and New York), 1903, is the true first and the only collected first — the census claim is correct, and the pictorial cloth is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First printing has 1903 on BOTH the title page and the copyright page and carries no impression statement
- Houghton Mifflin numbered later impressions of this title on the title page itself — copies stating, for example, "11th impression" on the title page are recorded in the trade — and the house rule for the period, on which three independent publisher guides agree, is that the year appears in Arabic numerals on the title page of first printings and is dropped or altered on subsequent printings
- Collation: 5 p.l. / [14], 387, [1] pp., octavo, with frontispiece and five plates plus a map, illustrated by E. Boyd Smith
- Bound in pictorial cloth — described as dark olive-green — with a cow/cowboy vignette stamped in several colors and gilt on the front board, titling lettered in black on front board and spine
- Sources conflict on the jacket: one ABAA-listed dealer records a copy in dust jacket while another states no jacket was issued, so no jacket point is asserted here
- Standard references: Herd 8, Six-Score 2, Dobie-Dykes 34, Campbell 2, Merrill Aristocrat
- Publisher imprint reads Houghton, Mifflin and Company

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Andy Adams |
| Publisher | Houghton, Mifflin and Company |
| Year | 1903 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First printing has 1903 on BOTH the title page and the copyright page and carries no impression statement |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First printing has 1903 on BOTH the title page and the copyright page and carries no impression statement. Houghton Mifflin numbered later impressions of this title on the title page itself — copies stating, for example, "11th impression" on the title page are recorded in the trade — and the house rule for the period, on which three independent publisher guides agree, is that the year appears in Arabic numerals on the title page of first printings and is dropped or altered on subsequent printings. Collation: 5 p.l. / [14], 387, [1] pp., octavo, with frontispiece and five plates plus a map, illustrated by E. Boyd Smith. Bound in pictorial cloth — described as dark olive-green — with a cow/cowboy vignette stamped in several colors and gilt on the front board, titling lettered in black on front board and spine. Sources conflict on the jacket: one ABAA-listed dealer records a copy in dust jacket while another states no jacket was issued, so no jacket point is asserted here. Standard references: Herd 8, Six-Score 2, Dobie-Dykes 34, Campbell 2, Merrill Aristocrat.

## Is this the true first?
US Houghton, Mifflin and Company (Boston and New York), 1903, is the true first and the only collected first — the census claim is correct, and the pictorial cloth is confirmed. No 1903 UK edition is recorded. The University of Nebraska Press / Bison Books edition (Lincoln, 1964, also issued in London) and the Penguin Classics (2006) are "first thus" reprints with added introductions.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Grosset & Dunlap (New York) issued a reprint carrying the 1903 date and the same 387-page setting under the G&D imprint — the standard trap; identify by the imprint, not the date. Later Houghton Mifflin printings (1927 with the Riverside Press, 1955) state their impression number on the title page. The Palladium Press "Frontier Classics Library" full brown leather issue with raised bands and marbled endpapers (Birmingham, Alabama, 2007) is a modern subscription reprint, not a first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Log of a Cowboy* by Andy Adams a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-log-of-a-cowboy
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.