# Is "The Professor" by Charlotte Brontë (as 'Currer Bell') a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Professor by Charlotte Brontë (as 'Currer Bell') (Smith, Elder, London, 1857) is identified by: London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1857; two volumes, published 6 June 1857, two years after Charlotte Brontë's death, still under the pseudonym — 'The Professor, A Tale. Smith, Elder, London, 1857 is the true first and the census claim stands.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1857; two volumes, published 6 June 1857, two years after Charlotte Brontë's death, still under the pseudonym — 'The Professor, A Tale
- By Currer Bell.' Original publisher's purple cloth, blind-stamped on the upper and lower boards, spines lettered in gilt
- The first state carries publisher's advertisements dated June 1857 at the rear, with the publisher's catalogue at the end of volume II and adverts for Brontë's works at the end of both volumes; advertisements dated later than June 1857 indicate a later state
- Half-titles are present in both volumes, and the binder's ticket at the foot of the rear pastedown of volume I is as issued
- Standard references: Smith 7
- Sadleir 347
- Publisher imprint reads Smith, Elder, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Charlotte Brontë (as 'Currer Bell') |
| Publisher | Smith, Elder, London |
| Year | 1857 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1857; two volumes, published 6 June 1857, two years after Charlotte Brontë's death, still under the pseudonym… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1857; two volumes, published 6 June 1857, two years after Charlotte Brontë's death, still under the pseudonym — 'The Professor, A Tale. By Currer Bell.' Original publisher's purple cloth, blind-stamped on the upper and lower boards, spines lettered in gilt. The first state carries publisher's advertisements dated June 1857 at the rear, with the publisher's catalogue at the end of volume II and adverts for Brontë's works at the end of both volumes; advertisements dated later than June 1857 indicate a later state. Half-titles are present in both volumes, and the binder's ticket at the foot of the rear pastedown of volume I is as issued. Standard references: Smith 7; Sadleir 347; Parrish 96.

## Is this the true first?
Smith, Elder, London, 1857 is the true first and the census claim stands. Harper & Brothers, New York, published the first American edition the same year, 1857; it is a separately collected edition worth naming, but it follows the London printing and is not the true first. The book's oddity is genuine and the census states it correctly: The Professor was the first novel Charlotte completed and submitted — Smith, Elder rejected it in 1846 and again in 1851, steering her instead toward the longer work that became Jane Eyre — so the first-written novel is the last-published, and it closes the seven-novel Brontë canon.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book club edition is documented for an 1857 two-decker; the risk is the ordinary Victorian one. Smith, Elder's own later printings and the cheap collected and uniform editions of Charlotte Brontë's works are the common substitutes, and the Harper New York 1857 is frequently offered simply as 'first edition 1857' without the qualifier 'first American'. Copies rebound out of the original purple cloth lose the binding evidence entirely — Bonhams distinguishes 'the first edition, in the first binding' for exactly this reason — and a set whose rear advertisements have been removed cannot be placed in the first state.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Professor* by Charlotte Brontë (as 'Currer Bell') a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-professor
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.