# Is "The Yemassee: A Romance of Carolina" by William Gilmore Simms a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Yemassee: A Romance of Carolina by William Gilmore Simms (Harper & Brothers, 1835) is identified by: First edition, published in April 1835 (a preface is dated April 3, 1835) by Harper & Brothers, New York, in two volumes, in an unusually large first printing of twenty-five hundred copies -- by Simms's own account in his preface to the second edition, twice the number usually printed in America for comparable European works -- which bibliographers attribute to Harper's confidence after the strong reception of Simms's Guy Rivers the year before.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, published in April 1835 (a preface is dated April 3, 1835) by Harper & Brothers, New York, in two volumes, in an unusually large first printing of twenty-five hundred copies -- by Simms's own account in his preface to the second edition, twice the number usually printed in America for comparable European works -- which bibliographers attribute to Harper's confidence after the strong reception of Simms's Guy Rivers the year before
- Original tan cloth with a paper spine label
- A notable point cited by dealers: rare surviving copies have the copyright notice pasted onto a leaf in volume one rather than printed directly, a feature collectors check for when assessing completeness and priority
- Publisher imprint reads Harper & Brothers
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | William Gilmore Simms |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
| Year | 1835 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, published in April 1835 (a preface is dated April 3, 1835) by Harper & Brothers, New York, in two volumes, in an unusually… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, published in April 1835 (a preface is dated April 3, 1835) by Harper & Brothers, New York, in two volumes, in an unusually large first printing of twenty-five hundred copies -- by Simms's own account in his preface to the second edition, twice the number usually printed in America for comparable European works -- which bibliographers attribute to Harper's confidence after the strong reception of Simms's Guy Rivers the year before. Original tan cloth with a paper spine label. A notable point cited by dealers: rare surviving copies have the copyright notice pasted onto a leaf in volume one rather than printed directly, a feature collectors check for when assessing completeness and priority.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Redfield issued a revised edition of The Yemassee beginning in 1853 as part of its uniform reprinting of Simms's romances; like other Redfield and later reprintings, it resets the text in uniform series cloth, distinguishable from the original 1835 tan-cloth Harper first edition and its pasted-in copyright notice.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Yemassee: A Romance of Carolina* by William Gilmore Simms a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-yemassee-a-romance-of-carolina
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.