Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Wiggin

Published by Nevan O Shaughnessy on March 12, 2018March 12, 2018

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Wiggin.

PRESENTING AN EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION hardback copy of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin from 1904.

This RARE book is in very Good condition for its age….. some very minor ‘knicks’ on the edges of the hardcover. No dust jacket.

The book is a FIRST EDITION ….. stating that it was published in October 1903…….BUT what makes this copy even RARER is the fact that it also has the date 1904 on its title page. We cannot find a record of this appearing in any other copy.

From our research the Book is the ‘4B’ Printing of the First Edition due to the wording on pages 325 and 327 and the Houghton Mifflin & Co on the spine..

YOU WILL NOT FIND THIS BOOK ANYWHERE ELSE!!

The Book was published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Cambridge Press, Cambridge in 1904…..but the First Edition was copyrighted in October 1903.

FACTORS IN DETERMINING THE CORRECT EDITION OF THIS BOOK:

1903 is stated on the bottom of the title page and “Published October 1903” is stated on the copyright page with no references to subsequent printings. The binding is green cloth with light green borders and lettering. The dust jacket is extremely rare. It is teal with navy blue lettering, it lacks illustrations, and carries a price of $1.25 on the spine. The back panel has advertisements for other books by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Both front and back flaps are blank. The dust jacket might have been issued with a glassine wrapper over the dust jacket.

There were three changes made to the first edition. The first change was made to the binding and involved switching the size of the publisher’s imprint at the foot of the spine from 1/16 type to 1/8 type. The second and third changes were content changes that involved switching a phrase on page 325, line 9 from “Don’t go to the side door;” to “Don’t turn in at the side;” – and simplifying a phrase on page 327, line 13 from “sun of that October noon.” to “October sun.” (See Comparison photos toward the bottom).

The reference guide BAL (Bibliography of American Literature) has assigned a tentative “Printing” number from 1 through 4 to the content variations. It has also given a “Binding” letter to the binding variations – Binding A for the 1/16 type and Binding B for the 1/8 type. Taken together, the combination of content and binding changes are expressed by a number to represent Printing followed by a letter to represent the Binding. We have established that there are 7 varieties and we created a chart to describe each one according to what is on page 325, page 327, and the binding. It is important to note that BAL says the order of printing presentation is tentative, but it does *not* say that the binding order is tentative.

After extensive research we believe that Binding A (publisher’s imprint on the spine is 1/16 type) is a true first edition point. It makes sense to us that a publisher would increase the size of their name on the spine rather than decrease it. We also looked at a 1931 Houghton Mifflin edition and the Houghton Mifflin 100 Year Anniversary Edition (2003); and noted that they carry the Printing 4 combination of changes. So if Printing 4 describes the latest content changes, Printing 1 appears to describe the earliest. That said, we believe that Printing 1, Binding A – Variety 1,A represent the true first edition points (“Don’t go to the side door;”, “sun of that October noon”, and 1/16 type on spine). We would love to hear some feedback about this.

Link: http://www.fedpo.com/BookDetail.php/Rebecca-Of-Sunnybrook