# Is "The Poky Little Puppy" by Janette Sebring Lowrey (illus. Gustaf Tenggren) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey (illus. Gustaf Tenggren) (Simon and Schuster, 1942) is identified by: Little Golden Book No. US-only true first — Simon and Schuster, New York, 1942.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Little Golden Book No
- 8, one of the original twelve titles Simon and Schuster issued simultaneously in 1942 (first published September 1942)
- Original format: roughly 8 x 6.75 in., 42 pages, stapled, blue spine strip over color pictorial boards, illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren, issued in a color pictorial dust jacket with a gold decorated strip along the spine panel — priced jacket, price present at the flap; jackets are scarce because children destroyed them
- Identification is by printing statement, never by date: Little Golden Books printed through 1947 state the printing in the front matter (first or second page / copyright page), in the form 'First printing, September 1942'; reprints list the earlier printings and add lines such as 'First printing, this edition, July 1943,' which is why dealers catalogue copies as 'First Edition
- Third Printing' or 'Twelfth Printing.' The letter code collectors rely on for later Little Golden Books (A = first, B = second, on the last page or inside back cover near the spine's lower right) was introduced only after 1947 and does NOT apply to the original twelve
- The number of titles advertised on the back cover corroborates the dating — the earliest issue lists the original twelve; later printings list twenty or more
- Publisher imprint reads Simon and Schuster

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Janette Sebring Lowrey (illus. Gustaf Tenggren) |
| Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
| Year | 1942 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Little Golden Book No |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Little Golden Book No. 8, one of the original twelve titles Simon and Schuster issued simultaneously in 1942 (first published September 1942). Original format: roughly 8 x 6.75 in., 42 pages, stapled, blue spine strip over color pictorial boards, illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren, issued in a color pictorial dust jacket with a gold decorated strip along the spine panel — priced jacket, price present at the flap; jackets are scarce because children destroyed them. Identification is by printing statement, never by date: Little Golden Books printed through 1947 state the printing in the front matter (first or second page / copyright page), in the form 'First printing, September 1942'; reprints list the earlier printings and add lines such as 'First printing, this edition, July 1943,' which is why dealers catalogue copies as 'First Edition; Third Printing' or 'Twelfth Printing.' The letter code collectors rely on for later Little Golden Books (A = first, B = second, on the last page or inside back cover near the spine's lower right) was introduced only after 1947 and does NOT apply to the original twelve. The number of titles advertised on the back cover corroborates the dating — the earliest issue lists the original twelve; later printings list twenty or more.

## Is this the true first?
US-only true first — Simon and Schuster, New York, 1942. No UK or original-language edition precedes it. Simon and Schuster is the imprint on the original twelve; Western Printing & Lithographing (Racine, Wisconsin) was the printer in 1942, not the publisher of record, so title pages reading Golden Press or Western Publishing Company are later issues however early they appear. The blue spine brackets the window: it was used 1942-1947 only.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The governing trap is that the 1942 copyright date is carried forward on every reprint for eighty-plus years, so the date proves nothing — Biblio's Little Golden Books guide makes this its headline warning. The 1947 redesign is the clearest later-issue tell: the book was reduced to the standard 8 x 6.5 in. trim with a shorter collation (28 pages, later 24), the dust jacket was dropped, and the blue spine gave way to an applied gold-foil spine over hard paper covers. Any gold-foil-spine copy, any jacketless copy in the smaller trim, and any 24-page collation is a later issue, not the 1942 first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Poky Little Puppy* by Janette Sebring Lowrey (illus. Gustaf Tenggren) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-poky-little-puppy
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.