# Is "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (J. B. Lippincott Company, 1937) is identified by: First edition, first printing: J. The US J.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing: J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1937
- Identify it by the 1937 imprint and the copyright in the author's name ('Copyright, 1937, by Zora Neale Hurston') with NO statement of a later printing or impression on the copyright page; later printings add such a notice
- The publisher's binding is orange cloth, lettered in black on the spine and front
- The pictorial dust jacket (a God-like figure hurling lightning over a storm-flooded landscape) is rare in the original; the sources consulted do not record a specific flap price, so a copy's jacket should be described as priced or unpriced from the example in hand rather than assumed
- Genuine 1937 firsts are scarce, and markedly scarcer in the original jacket
- Publisher imprint reads J. B. Lippincott Company
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Zora Neale Hurston |
| Publisher | J. B. Lippincott Company |
| Year | 1937 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first printing: J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1937 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing: J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1937. Identify it by the 1937 imprint and the copyright in the author's name ('Copyright, 1937, by Zora Neale Hurston') with NO statement of a later printing or impression on the copyright page; later printings add such a notice. The publisher's binding is orange cloth, lettered in black on the spine and front. The pictorial dust jacket (a God-like figure hurling lightning over a storm-flooded landscape) is rare in the original; the sources consulted do not record a specific flap price, so a copy's jacket should be described as priced or unpriced from the example in hand rather than assumed. Genuine 1937 firsts are scarce, and markedly scarcer in the original jacket.

## Is this the true first?
The US J. B. Lippincott edition (Philadelphia, 1937) is the true first edition and first printing; the sources consulted record no earlier or simultaneous British edition. The first UK edition is the Virago Modern Classics paperback of 1986 — nearly half a century later — so precedence is not in doubt. The original 1937 jacket is the great scarcity.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No contemporaneous book-club edition competes with the Lippincott first. After roughly thirty years out of print, the novel was revived by the University of Illinois Press paperback of 1978 (introduction by Sherley Anne Williams), followed by Harper/Harper Perennial trade editions and the 1986 Virago UK paperback; all of these carry their own imprints and ISBNs and are separated from the 1937 first at a glance by the presence of an ISBN and modern copyright/printing data.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Their Eyes Were Watching God* by Zora Neale Hurston a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/their-eyes-were-watching-god
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.