NMLP P-040346 · True-first precedence · minted 2026-07-19
The Saga of Billy the Kid
Walter Noble Burns · Doubleday, Page & Company (Garden City, N.Y.) · 1926
US-only true first: Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, 1926. No earlier or simultaneous UK issue; the book was kept in print in England, but the London issues (e.g. Macdonald, 1951) follow well after. The commonest "first thus" traps both retain the 1926 date and are routinely mis-sold as firsts: the Grosset & Dunlap reprint (G&D imprint, copyright page reading "1925, 1926", red cloth, retaining the Borein endpapers) and the Garden City Publishing reprint. Also later: the 1946 Armed Services Edition, the 1953 Signet paperback and the 1999 University of New Mexico Press reissue.
Full identification guide for this title →
New Mexico Literacy Project — True-first precedence NMLP P-040346 for "The Saga of Billy the Kid" by Walter Noble Burns (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/id/point/p-040346, CC BY 4.0, dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21184548).