4 L. Frank Baum first editions are documented on this shelf, from Father Goose: His Book (1899) to Ozma of Oz (1907) across 4 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that L. Frank Baum title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
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- Father Goose: His Book — 1899 · George M. HillThe documented first-printing point is a negative one: the copyright page of the first printing carries no edition or printing statement of any kind, and later printings add one. Physically, the book is a quarto in original pictorial gray paper-covered boards, unpaginated (54 leaves including the front blank), with colour illustrations throughout by W. W. Denslow and the verso of the final leaf crediting Ralph…. US-only origination, and the census claim is correct: Geo. M. Hill Co., Chicago (and New York), 1899 is the true first. No UK or other-language edition precedes it, and no British trade edition of 1899 is documented in the sources consulted. This is the Baum–Denslow collaboration that immediately precedes and financed the look of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the same publisher, so it is collected as an…. No book-club issue is documented for a title of this date. The governing reprint tell is the copyright-page edition statement — any printed edition or printing wording there rules out the first printing. The practical trap is not a book club but the sheer speed of the reprint sequence: six printings of between 10,000 and 30,000 copies each followed within three months of publication, all dated 1899 with the same….
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — 1900 · Geo. M. Hill Co.First edition: Geo. M. Hill Co., Chicago & New York, 1900, with W. W. Denslow's 24 colour plates; light green pictorial cloth stamped in red and dark green, the 'Geo. M. Hill Co.' imprint at the foot of the spine. First-state text points (per Bibliographia Oziana): the publisher's advertisement on p. [2] is enclosed in a box; p. 14, line 1 reads 'low wail on the wind'; the misprint 'peices' (for 'pieces') stands…. Geo. M. Hill 1900 is the true first. First-issue determination is genuinely complex: the text state and the colour-plate states are catalogued in the standard bibliography (Hanff & Greene, Bibliographia Oziana), and the binding variants (light green cloth, imprint stamping and colour) are classified separately from the text state, so a copy must be collated on both. The Bobbs-Merrill reissues, retitled 'The New…. Any imprint other than Geo. M. Hill — Bobbs-Merrill above all, whose reissues carry the 'New Wizard of Oz' title — is a later edition, not the first. Do not assume a Hill imprint alone proves first state: later Hill text and plate states exist (boxless p. [2] advertisement, thirteen-line reset colophon with no box, 'pieces' corrected, plates without the moon-blots or the horizon shading, broken type at pp. 100….
- The Marvelous Land of Oz — 1904 · Reilly & BrittonThe title page must read "The Marvelous Land of Oz" over the Reilly & Britton, Chicago imprint. The first state has a copyright page carrying no month; the second state adds the line "Published, July, 1904". Collate for 16 tipped-in colour plates by John R. Neill, each with a typeset caption. Binding is red cloth with the front cover pictorially stamped and the title lettered in blue with decoration in silver,…. US-only origination, and the census claim is correct: Reilly & Britton, Chicago, 1904 is the true first, with no UK or other-language edition preceding it. The trap is the title itself — the title was shortened to "The Land of Oz" within the same year, so 1904-dated copies reading "The Land of Oz" on the title page are a later state, not the first. Only "The Marvelous Land of Oz" on the title page is in…. A Reilly & Lee imprint is conclusively later — the firm was renamed from Reilly & Britton in 1919, so any Reilly & Lee copy is a reprint regardless of the 1904 copyright date. "The Land of Oz" shortened title and "Popular Edition" wording on the title page or spine are reprint tells. Later printings are also reported to carry a reduced colour-plate count against the 16 plates called for in early printings, so….
- Ozma of Oz — 1907 · The Reilly & Britton Co.No edition statement appears; identification rests on state points alone. First printing has the full-colour illustration on page 221 printed in colour — it appears in black and white in slightly later printings from roughly 1911 — and uses colour text illustrations worked into the letterpress rather than inserted colour plates. First binding is light tan cloth over boards, stamped in red, black, yellow and blue,…. US-only original, and the census claim is correct: Chicago: The Reilly & Britton Co., 1907, illustrated by John R. Neill — the third Oz book. Baum wrote in English for an American publisher, so there is no competing UK or original-language edition with precedence, and no simultaneous transatlantic issue is at stake. No book club edition is involved at this date. The dominant reprint tell is the imprint: Reilly & Britton became Reilly & Lee in 1919, so any copy bearing the Reilly & Lee imprint is a later printing regardless of the 1907 copyright date carried over on the page. Within the Reilly & Britton period, later printings lose the colour on page 221 (black and white from about 1911) and the colour pictorial endpapers go….
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