NMLP P-041743 · True-first precedence · minted 2026-07-19

The Bean Eaters

Gwendolyn Brooks · Harper & Brothers, New York · 1960

US only — census claim confirmed. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1960 is the true first; no contemporaneous British edition is recorded. Note a precision point on the census's 'contains We Real Cool': the poem had a prior periodical appearance in Poetry (September 1959), so The Bean Eaters is its first appearance in book form, not its first appearance in print.

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New Mexico Literacy Project — True-first precedence NMLP P-041743 for "The Bean Eaters" by Gwendolyn Brooks (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/id/point/p-041743, CC BY 4.0, dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21184548).