# Is "Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children (written and illustrated by Kate Greenaway; her first book both written and illustrated by herself)" by Kate Greenaway a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children (written and illustrated by Kate Greenaway; her first book both written and illustrated by herself) by Kate Greenaway (George Routledge & Sons, London, [1879] (undated on title page; published October 1879 for the Christmas trade — see trueFirstNote on the 1878/1879 cataloguing split)) is identified by: Small quarto, 64 pp., with Greenaway's own verses and numerous wood-engraved illustrations printed in colour by Edmund Evans (many text vignettes plus full-page illustrations; no tipped-in plates — the images are integral colour wood-engravings). There is NO signed/numbered deluxe or large-paper limited issue of this title — unlike the later Edwardian gift-book illustrators (Rackham, Dulac), Greenaway's Routledge/Evans toy books were mass-market colour gift books issued in a single trade form.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Small quarto, 64 pp., with Greenaway's own verses and numerous wood-engraved illustrations printed in colour by Edmund Evans (many text vignettes plus full-page illustrations; no tipped-in plates — the images are integral colour wood-engravings)
- Standard bibliography: Schuster & Engen 201
- The true first edition, FIRST ISSUE (S&E 201.1a) is identified by three points:
- "End of Contents" printed at the foot of p
- the three full-page illustrations present on pp
- 21, 35 and 63 (these were dropped in later printings); and
- Publisher imprint reads George Routledge & Sons, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Kate Greenaway |
| Publisher | George Routledge & Sons, London |
| Year | [1879] (undated on title page; published October 1879 for the Christmas trade — see trueFirstNote on the 1878/1879 cataloguing split) |
| True first | British edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | Small quarto, 64 pp., with Greenaway's own verses and numerous wood-engraved illustrations printed in colour by Edmund Evans (many text… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Small quarto, 64 pp., with Greenaway's own verses and numerous wood-engraved illustrations printed in colour by Edmund Evans (many text vignettes plus full-page illustrations; no tipped-in plates — the images are integral colour wood-engravings). Standard bibliography: Schuster & Engen 201. The true first edition, FIRST ISSUE (S&E 201.1a) is identified by three points: (1) "End of Contents" printed at the foot of p. 14; (2) the three full-page illustrations present on pp. 21, 35 and 63 (these were dropped in later printings); and (3) on the title page the printer's line reads "Edmund Evans" WITHOUT the printer's ornaments flanking his name. The SECOND issue (S&E 201.1b) adds printer's ornaments on both sides of "Edmund Evans" on the title page and a figure of a young boy on the title-page verso. (Note: a minority of catalogue descriptions muddle the ornament priority, but the dominant dealer/S&E consensus is that the first issue LACKS the flanking ornaments.) Binding: original green glazed pictorial paper boards (children in cream/pale clothing) with a dark-green cloth backstrip/spine, dark blue-green endpapers/pastedowns, all edges stained yellow. with its printed price; Evans printed an unusually large first run of 20,000 copies, which sold out before he could reprint.

## Is this the true first?
There is NO signed/numbered deluxe or large-paper limited issue of this title — unlike the later Edwardian gift-book illustrators (Rackham, Dulac), Greenaway's Routledge/Evans toy books were mass-market colour gift books issued in a single trade form. The prized true first is therefore the ordinary trade first edition, FIRST ISSUE (Schuster & Engen 201.1a), distinguished by the three points above (End of Contents at foot of p.14; full-page illustrations on pp. 21/35/63; "Edmund Evans" on the title page WITHOUT flanking ornaments); the second issue (201.1b) adds those ornaments plus the boy figure on the title verso. Dating note: the title page is undated, so cataloguers bracket it — the British Library, Bauman, Pazzo and Wikipedia give [1879] (published October 1879), while Christie's, Bonhams and Sotherans frequently catalogue it [1878]; the likeliest reason for the [1878] tag is that Evans engraved the blocks in 1878 ahead of the Christmas 1879 release, but both dates refer to the same first edition. First American edition was issued by George Routledge & Sons' New York house (416 Broome Street), circa 1880 (announced in Publishers' Weekly, 1880) — later than, and derived from, the London printing; the London Routledge/Evans edition is the true first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Because the title page is undated, later Routledge/Warne reprints (and the cumulative ~100,000 copies produced, including the French "Sous la Fenêtre" and German editions) can be mistaken for the first. Later printings/issues LACK the three full-page illustrations on pp. 21, 35 and 63 and move/omit the "End of Contents" line from the foot of p.14; the second issue adds printer's ornaments flanking "Edmund Evans" on the title page plus a boy figure on the title verso. The circa-1880 first American edition (Routledge, New York) and later Frederick Warne reissues (after Warne absorbed Routledge's Greenaway titles) are not the first, and modern facsimiles exist. Watch for rebacked/recased boards and supplied spines — common on surviving copies given the fragile pictorial boards and yellow-stained edges; such restoration does not change issue status but should be disclosed.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children (written and illustrated by Kate Greenaway; her first book both written and illustrated by herself)* by Kate Greenaway a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/under-the-window-pictures-rhymes-for-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.