# Is "The Subjection of Women" by John Stuart Mill a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill (Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1869) is identified by: First edition, first printing: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1869, octavo. CENSUS CORRECTED.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1869, octavo
- Issued in publisher's original ochre/light-orange cloth, stamped in blind on the boards with the spine lettered in gilt; edges uncut
- There is no printed edition statement and no number line — the 1869 Longmans title-page imprint is itself the point, and copies are identified by imprint plus the original cloth
- Later Longmans printings and the 1878 and subsequent 'People's Edition' issues carry their own dated or numbered title pages and are not the first
- Scarce in the original publisher's cloth; many surviving copies were rebound in contemporary calf or half morocco
- Publisher imprint reads Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | John Stuart Mill |
| Publisher | Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London |
| Year | 1869 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first printing: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1869, octavo |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London, 1869, octavo. Issued in publisher's original ochre/light-orange cloth, stamped in blind on the boards with the spine lettered in gilt; edges uncut. There is no printed edition statement and no number line — the 1869 Longmans title-page imprint is itself the point, and copies are identified by imprint plus the original cloth. Later Longmans printings and the 1878 and subsequent 'People's Edition' issues carry their own dated or numbered title pages and are not the first. Scarce in the original publisher's cloth; many surviving copies were rebound in contemporary calf or half morocco.

## Is this the true first?
CENSUS CORRECTED. The London 1869 Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer edition is the true first. The census claim that the same-year American printing is D. Appleton, New York, is wrong: the first American edition is J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1869 (174 pp., with 6 pp. of advertisements at the end), issued in green pebbled cloth with gilt-lettered spine. D. Appleton & Company did publish a New York edition in 1869, but dealers catalogue it as the 'First New York Edition' and expressly note the work was 'published first in Philadelphia by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1869' — a concession made against the cataloguing dealer's own interest. Both London Longmans 1869 and Lippincott Philadelphia 1869 are collected; the Appleton New York 1869 is a same-year secondary American edition, not the first American.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for an 1869 title. The trap here is the later Longmans 'People's Edition' and the 1878 reissue, both of which reprint from the same setting and are frequently offered as firsts on the strength of the Longmans imprint alone — check for the 1869 date on the title page. Modern reprints (Routledge, Oxford World's Classics, Dover) are plainly marked.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Subjection of Women* by John Stuart Mill a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-subjection-of-women
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.