Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

No 1939-era book-club issue is documented in the sources consulted. The routine confusions are (a) later Houghton Mifflin printings, told by removal of the 1939 date from the title page and/or a later-printing notice on the copyright page — dealers catalogue printings well into the twenties; (b) Scholastic and similar paperback reprints from the 1970s onward, which carry ISBNs; and (c) a first-printing book wearing a later-issue jacket, which the higher flap price and jacket state reveal. The acknowledgement to Dickie Birkenbush appears in early and later printings alike and should not be treated as a first-printing point.