# Is "Uncle Tom's Children" by Richard Wright a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright (Harper & Brothers, 1938) is identified by: First edition, first printing is identified by "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page together with Harper's letter code "B-N" on the same page. Census claim confirmed on precedence: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1938 is the true first and is Wright's first book.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, first printing is identified by "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page together with Harper's letter code "B-N" on the same page
- Under the Harper code used from 1912 to 1949, the first letter is the month of printing (A=January through M=December, skipping J) and the second letter the year (N=1938) — so B-N decodes to February 1938, ahead of the March 1938 publication
- Both elements should be present; the code is the decisive point, because later Harper printings carry a different code
- Octavo, 317 pp, original red cloth
- Contains four novellas: "Big Boy Leaves Home," "Down by the Riverside," "Long Black Song," and "Fire and Cloud." Cited in the trade as Whiteman p
- Blockson 6674
- Publisher imprint reads Harper & Brothers

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Richard Wright |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
| Year | 1938 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, first printing is identified by "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page together with Harper's letter code "B-N" on the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition, first printing is identified by "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page together with Harper's letter code "B-N" on the same page. Under the Harper code used from 1912 to 1949, the first letter is the month of printing (A=January through M=December, skipping J) and the second letter the year (N=1938) — so B-N decodes to February 1938, ahead of the March 1938 publication. Both elements should be present; the code is the decisive point, because later Harper printings carry a different code. Octavo, 317 pp, original red cloth. Contains four novellas: "Big Boy Leaves Home," "Down by the Riverside," "Long Black Song," and "Fire and Cloud." Cited in the trade as Whiteman p. 49; Blockson 6674. No first-state text errors are documented in the sources consulted.

## Is this the true first?
Census claim confirmed on precedence: Harper & Brothers, New York, 1938 is the true first and is Wright's first book. The first English edition is Victor Gollancz, London, 1939 (286 pp, light blue cloth), which follows and is separately collected. One correction to the census wording: the 1940 Harper edition subtitled "Five Long Stories" — which adds the autobiographical essay "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" and the story "Bright and Morning Star" — is an enlarged EDITION, not a "distinct issue" of the 1938 book. It is a first-thus trap: it is the first appearance of the added pieces in this collection but is not a first edition of Uncle Tom's Children, and it must never be catalogued as the first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1938 Harper printing in the sources consulted. The practical reprint tell is the Harper code itself: any letter code other than B-N on the copyright page rules out the first printing, regardless of what else the page says.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Uncle Tom's Children* by Richard Wright a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/uncle-toms-children
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.