# Is "The Story of Little Black Sambo" by Helen Bannerman a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Story of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman (Grant Richards, 1899) is identified by: Grant Richards, London, first printed October 1899, as No. UK Grant Richards, London, October 1899 is the true first, and the census is correct on that.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Grant Richards, London, first printed October 1899, as No
- 4 of The Dumpy Books for Children
- 16mo, approximately 4 the printed price x 3 inches (124 x 75mm), collating viii, 57, [1 blank], [1 printer's imprint], [1 blank] pp, with a three-page preface by Bannerman
- Twenty-seven full-page colour illustrations after the author's own drawings, engraved on wood and colour-printed by Edmund Evans
- Original pale green cloth lettered and blocked in darker green, with ruled borders and vertical stripes
- The decisive point is the printing statement on the verso of the title page: the November reprint reads 'First printed October, 1899
- Publisher imprint reads Grant Richards

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Helen Bannerman |
| Publisher | Grant Richards |
| Year | 1899 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Grant Richards, London, first printed October 1899, as No |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Grant Richards, London, first printed October 1899, as No. 4 of The Dumpy Books for Children. 16mo, approximately 4 the printed price x 3 inches (124 x 75mm), collating viii, 57, [1 blank], [1 printer's imprint], [1 blank] pp, with a three-page preface by Bannerman. Twenty-seven full-page colour illustrations after the author's own drawings, engraved on wood and colour-printed by Edmund Evans. Original pale green cloth lettered and blocked in darker green, with ruled borders and vertical stripes. The decisive point is the printing statement on the verso of the title page: the November reprint reads 'First printed October, 1899. Reprinted November 1899.' — so a copy whose verso carries that added reprint line is the second printing, not the first, and the October first printing lacks it. The book ran to four printings inside its first year, so reprint lines accumulate on the verso and should be collated first, before binding or plate checks. Survival of true first printings is poor: the format was small and was handled hard by children, so most recorded copies are worn.

## Is this the true first?
UK Grant Richards, London, October 1899 is the true first, and the census is correct on that. The first American edition is Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1900, which followed and is separately collected. CORRECTION to the census: the Stokes 1900 edition did NOT use different art. Stokes bought the rights from Grant Richards and its edition reproduces Bannerman's own illustrations, differing in its cover binding rather than its artwork. The versions with genuinely different art are the later unauthorised American editions — illustrated by John R. Neill (1908), Frank Dobias (Macmillan, 1927), and Ethel Hays (Saalfield, 1942) among at least twenty-seven English-language versions issued between 1905 and 1953, which relocated the setting and imposed racial caricature absent from Bannerman's drawings. That distinction matters bibliographically and historically and should be stated accurately.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Stokes added the line 'The Only Authorized American Edition' to its 1923 edition to distinguish itself in a market crowded with piracies — that line is a 1923-or-later tell and is emphatically not a first-edition point, despite being read as one. Any copy with illustrations not after Bannerman is a later unauthorised edition. Modern facsimiles of the first American illustrated edition are in print and are catalogued as facsimiles, not firsts.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Story of Little Black Sambo* by Helen Bannerman a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-story-of-little-black-sambo
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.