University of Virginia Library

The First Printing of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio
William L. Phillips

STUDENTS of eighteenth-century bibliography have for some time recognized the value of contemporary periodical reviews as evidence in determining the order of editions or issues of a book. Such reviews may also have use in determining more recent "firsts," as the following consideration of the first printing of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1919) will indicate.

Winesburg, Ohio is one of the fictional works of the past fifty years which seems certain to survive, and as such it has attracted the attention of those who have been concerned with the study of American first editions. Merle Johnson in 1929 wrote that the distinguishing points of the "first issue" (i.e., impression) of this "high spot" of American literature were a "top stained yellow" and a perfect title-page border; the "second issue" (i.e., impression), he said, was marked by "a break in the title-page rule border."[1] In 1941 Whitman Bennett provided a fuller description; he found

the "first issue" to be bound in yellow cloth, with the top edges of the sheets "white (not stained)." As further distinguishing marks of "first state, first issue copies" he mentioned "perfect type in the word 'the,' p. 251, 1. 3, which is badly broken in all later printings," and "a break in the outer vertical rule of the title page frame, about one-quarter of the way up from the bottom of the sheet."[2] Jacob Blanck in his 1936 revision of Merle Johnson's American First Editions had indicated that the first issue had a "top stained yellow" although he suggested the existence of "some copies, possibly of the first printing, with either unstained or orange tops."[3] In the 1942 revision of this work, possibly influenced by Mr. Bennett's statement the year before, Mr. Blanck added that "the earliest copies have perfect type at p. 251, line 3, the word the."[4] Apart from the color of the top, the question seems to be one of "Was the type of the word the perfect and the title-page frame broken in the earliest printing, or was the situation merely the reverse?"

On the copyright page of the third and all subsequent printings which I have seen (fourth, fifth, and sixth), the dates of the first and second printings are indicated as "April, 1919" and "December, 1919." (Had such a notice appeared on corresponding pages of the first and second printings, the confusion we have seen above would, of course, have been avoided.) On June 1, 1919, the book was reviewed in the New York Sun. Here the reviewer railed at Anderson's "very bad English"; he particularly pointed out the poor grammar in one of Anderson's sentences: "an intense silence seemed to lay over everything."[5] Whether in response to this particular review or to some other notice of the error, the second printing and all subsequent printings read "lie" in the passage quoted, to be found on page 86, line 5. Here then is a certain indication of the priority of the printings; Anderson's faulty grammar has provided us the clue.[6]

Unfortunately, I have been able to locate only two copies which have the "lay" readings; the better preserved one is to be found in the Sherwood Anderson Collection of the Newberry Library, Chicago, with an inscription to a friend in Anderson's hand on the inside of the front cover. It is enclosed in a white dust jacket, and bound in orange cloth, with the publisher's device blind stamped on the front cover and with a white paper label on the spine; the top edge of the sheets is stained orange-yellow. The title

page frame is perfect; the type in the word the, page 251, line 3, is broken.[7]

Any copy of the work, then, which contains the revised reading "lie", and which has no indication of the date of printing on the copyright page, must, it seems, be suspect of being one of the second printing, December, 1919. One has little difficulty locating copies of this kind; and those which I have examined have been uniformly distinguished by the points noted by Mr. Bennett for "the first issue." They are bound in yellow cloth, with the top of the sheets unstained. In each there is a break in the outer vertical rule of the title-page frame, about one and three-eighths inches up from the lower horizontal rule; in each the type in the word the, page 251, line 3, is perfect.

Furthermore, collation of the copies of the first printing with those which must now be considered of the second printing reveals two other points: (1) in the first printing the type in the word cutting, page 260, line 9, is perfect; it is broken in the second printing, although it has been corrected in the third and all later printings; and (2) in the first printing the type in the first his, page 196, line 9, is perfect; the letters is are depressed in the second printing, although they have been raised in the third and all later printings.

It may be of interest, finally, to note that the break in the title page rule, mentioned by Mr. Bennett as distinguishing the first printing, continues to appear in the third printing (January, 1921) but has been corrected in the fourth (December, 1921) and all subsequent printings. The word the, page 251, line 3, mentioned by Mr. Bennett as "badly broken in all later printings [than the first]," actually remains perfect from the second through the sixth printing (March, 1927), where my investigation ended.

Notes