# Is "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne" by Gilbert White a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White (Printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son, London, 1789) is identified by: First edition, quarto (approx. A London original in English: no UK-versus-US and no original-language precedence question arises.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, quarto (approx
- 269 x 205 mm), collating v, 468, [6] index, [1] errata, printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son at Horace's Head, Fleet Street
- The standard first-edition points are pagination faults present in all copies: p
- 292 misnumbered 262, and pp
- 441-442 omitted from the pagination sequence with no loss of text
- The errata leaf must be present
- Publisher imprint reads Printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Gilbert White |
| Publisher | Printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son, London |
| Year | 1789 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, quarto (approx |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
First edition, quarto (approx. 269 x 205 mm), collating v, 468, [6] index, [1] errata, printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son at Horace's Head, Fleet Street. The standard first-edition points are pagination faults present in all copies: p. 292 misnumbered 262, and pp. 441-442 omitted from the pagination sequence with no loss of text. The errata leaf must be present. Illustration comprises two engraved titles — an added engraved title and a separate engraved title for 'The Antiquities of Selborne' at p. [307], both with vignettes — plus seven engraved plates, two of them folding, including the folding panoramic frontispiece view of Selborne, engraved by Peter Mazell and Daniel Lerpinière after drawings by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm. James Cummins additionally records the fly-title to the Natural History bound after the Advertisement. References: Martin 90; Rothschild 2550; Freeman, British Natural History Books 3976. (Sources cite conflicting Grolier English numbers for this book — 62 and 125 — so no Grolier number is asserted here.)

## Is this the true first?
A London original in English: no UK-versus-US and no original-language precedence question arises. The real hazard is 'first thus'. Selborne is among the most reprinted natural-history books in English; the second edition did not appear until 1802 and the third in 1813, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries produced an unbroken stream of re-issues, many newly illustrated. Later editions also treat the twenty-six letters on antiquities inconsistently and sometimes drop the Antiquities section altogether, so a copy lacking the Antiquities material and its separate engraved title is certainly not the 1789 quarto.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Book clubs postdate the book, so the reprint tells carry the whole burden. Only the 1789 quarto printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son — with the errata leaf, the 292-for-262 misnumbering, the 441-442 pagination gap, both engraved titles and the seven plates — is the first edition. Any octavo, any edition dated 1802 or later, any newly illustrated edition, and any facsimile is a reprint regardless of how convincingly period the binding looks; donor copies are overwhelmingly likely to be later editions.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne* by Gilbert White a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-natural-history-and-antiquities-of-selborne
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.