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| How to Identify a Peterson First Edition |
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 On April 27, 1934, the first printing of Roger Tory Peterson’s classic bird book, Houghton Mifflin of Boston published A Field Guide to the Birds. Since Peterson’s death in 1996, this book has become a collector’s item with prices to match. The first edition was printed four times between 1934 and 1939, when the second edition came out. Each printing (since these printings had minor corrections they are called “states”, but are not considered new editions) can be identified by the following:1st state: The year 1934 appears on both the title and copyright page (this is standard practice by Houghton Mifflin). In the Index “Bob-pumper” appears instead of the correct “Bog-pumper”. Also two plates, the heron plate (opposite page 12) and the swan plate (opposite page 18) show white birds (Little Blue Heron, American and Snowy egrets on the heron plate and the Whistling Swan’s neck on the swan plate) with grayish color instead of white. Finally the four-color plates are covered by tissue guards, with the names of the birds shown on the plate printed on them, NOT by standard paper. 2nd state: The year 1934 is no longer on the title page and “Bog-pumper” is now in the index. Otherwise the second state is identical to the first state. 3rd state: The dirty gray plates have been cleaned up (most noticeable on the Whistling Swan’s neck). The tissue guards are still present on the color plates. 4th state: The tissue guards are replaced by standard paper. Only 2,000 copies of the first state were printed and 3,000 copies of the second were printed. The number of copies printed for the 3rd and 4th states hasn’t been determined. As for current prices you can guess that the first state is the most expensive. A copy of the 1st state WITH DUST JACKET recently sold for $1,500. Other states usually sell for between $100 to $200, more if the book has its dust jacket.
Ian Paulsen |
