# Is "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (Frederick Warne & Co., 1902) is identified by: Three separate printings must be told apart. Precedence runs: December 1901 private printing (250 copies, flat spine) = the absolute true first; February 1902 second private printing (200 copies, rounded spine) = second; Frederick Warne, October 1902 = the first published/commercial edition (the 'trade first').

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Three separate printings must be told apart
- First private printing, December 1901: 250 copies, printed by Strangeways & Sons, in fawn/grey-green paper-covered boards lettered in black with a FLAT spine; a single colour frontispiece (three-colour process) with black-and-white line illustrations throughout
- Second private printing, February 1902: 200 copies, distinguished chiefly by a ROUNDED spine (plus minor textual revisions); same illustration scheme
- Frederick Warne & Co. first commercial/trade edition, October 1902 (first printing 8,000 copies; a further 12,000 in Nov. and 8,220 in Dec
- 1902), now fully coloured: undated, imprint 'Frederick Warne & Co.' with NO 'Ltd.' (the firm became a limited company on 26 May 1919, so any 'Ltd.' copy is later); the first three printings are in brown or grey paper boards (green boards were introduced only after the first printing), with leaf/floral-pattern endpapers on a pale-grey ground; page 51 reads 'wept big tears' in the first three printings, altered to 'shed big tears' in the fourth printing of April 1903; colour frontispiece present; the capital 'O's on spine and cover carry a dot in the centre
- A scarcer deluxe issue in pictorial cloth (green, and rarer colours) was bound up alongside the boards trade issue
- Publisher imprint reads Frederick Warne & Co.

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Beatrix Potter |
| Publisher | Frederick Warne & Co. |
| Year | 1902 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Three separate printings must be told apart |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Three separate printings must be told apart. (1) First private printing, December 1901: 250 copies, printed by Strangeways & Sons, in fawn/grey-green paper-covered boards lettered in black with a FLAT spine; a single colour frontispiece (three-colour process) with black-and-white line illustrations throughout. (2) Second private printing, February 1902: 200 copies, distinguished chiefly by a ROUNDED spine (plus minor textual revisions); same illustration scheme. (3) Frederick Warne & Co. first commercial/trade edition, October 1902 (first printing 8,000 copies; a further 12,000 in Nov. and 8,220 in Dec. 1902), now fully coloured: undated, imprint 'Frederick Warne & Co.' with NO 'Ltd.' (the firm became a limited company on 26 May 1919, so any 'Ltd.' copy is later); the first three printings are in brown or grey paper boards (green boards were introduced only after the first printing), with leaf/floral-pattern endpapers on a pale-grey ground; page 51 reads 'wept big tears' in the first three printings, altered to 'shed big tears' in the fourth printing of April 1903; colour frontispiece present; the capital 'O's on spine and cover carry a dot in the centre. A scarcer deluxe issue in pictorial cloth (green, and rarer colours) was bound up alongside the boards trade issue.

## Is this the true first?
Precedence runs: December 1901 private printing (250 copies, flat spine) = the absolute true first; February 1902 second private printing (200 copies, rounded spine) = second; Frederick Warne, October 1902 = the first published/commercial edition (the 'trade first'). The two private printings are exceedingly rare and must not be conflated — they are two distinct printings (Dec 1901 vs Feb 1902), separated by the flat vs rounded spine. Private printings have monochrome interiors with a single colour frontispiece and the Strangeways imprint; the Warne trade edition is fully coloured.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Within the Warne trade edition the 'wept big tears' reading (first three printings) versus 'shed big tears' (fourth printing, April 1903) is the key later-printing tell, alongside the switch to green boards after the first printing and the loss of the original leaf-pattern endpapers. Any 'Frederick Warne & Co., Ltd.' imprint post-dates May 1919. Modern reprints are obvious. The critical precedence distinction remains the two 1901/1902 private printings versus the 1902 Warne trade.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Tale of Peter Rabbit* by Beatrix Potter a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-tale-of-peter-rabbit
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.