First Edition Beginner Books

Key To Identifying First Edition Beginner Books®

Beginner Books® Dust Jacket Sequence

Annual Waves of Beginner Books®

Upon its inception in 1958, Beginner Books published their books concurrently in annual ‘waves’, as opposed to the normal practice of publishing each book on its own separate timeline. For example in 1958 they published five books concurrently, bringing the series total to six.

These initial six Beginner Books were numbered by the publisher from B-1 The Cat In The Hat, to B-6 Sam And The Firefly. The books originated from various children’s book authors and illustrators, and were instantly embraced in the market.

Six books were published in the 1959 wave, from B-7 You Will Go To The Moon, to B-12 Ann Can Fly. In 1960 six new Beginner Books were published, from B-13 One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, to B-18 Are You My Mother?

This method of publishing waves of new books concurrently each year continued until the early 1970’s.

An Annual Dust Jacket

Each year the dust jacket back cover would be reconfigured to list all the books in the Beginner Books series. The dust jacket back of the newly published books would include the complete series list, but also the reprints of the prior books in the series would be published with that current year’s dust jacket.

Therefore the dust jacket back is a good means to determine the publication year for first print Beginner Books, and also for determining the publication year for reprints of earlier books in the series.

A potential collecting angle is to acquire a copy of The Cat In The Hat with a different Beginner Book dust jacket from 1957-to-1967.

Beginner Books® Love Their Dust Jackets

The dust jacket is a vitally important component of collecting contemporary first edition books, and especially American children’s picturebooks such as the Beginner Books. The first edition Beginner Books dust jacket preserves historical information not contained by the book alone, and from a perspective contemporaneous with its original date of publication:

1. Initial trade price
2. Earliest book synopsis (front flap)
3. Contemporaneous author & illustrator short biography (back flap)
4. Original marketing information (all DJ)

Therefore the first edition book in its original first edition dust jacket captures a small historical moment in time which is incomplete sans DJ.

Because of this - within today’s book collecting market - first edition Beginner Books without the first edition dust jacket are priced and valued at considerably less than when the book and DJ are offered together. In many instances, the first edition book alone is priced at only 10% of a first edition book with a first edition dust jacket in similar condition.

Children being what children be, most of the original dust jackets that protected a Beginner Book perished or became very diminished soon after purchase. Dust be to dust.

Therefore many early printings – with first printings difficult to acquire - in a nice condition dust jacket are to be prized. In most instances the DJ information is THE key to correctly identifying a first edition Beginner Book, therefore, sans jacket, there is little collector interest. The exceptions are books with 'First Printing' on the copyright page, which will have collector interest, and are discussed below.

You Can’t Trust A Dust Jacket, Back

As mentioned previously, Beginner Books would publish a wave of books concurrently each year. Accompanying this wave of new books was a new dust jacket, listing all the books in the series to date. From 1958-to-1967, there was a new configuration of the dust jacket back each year.

However … several of these annual back DJ title configurations have a slight variant here, or a slight variant there, just enough so that one cannot completely trust it as the only first edition identifier. For examples:

1. The Cat In The Hat: The first five printings all have identical back dust jackets!
2. 1958 B-2 to B-6: First and second printings have identical back dust jackets.
3. 1960 B-14 to B-18: The same back dust jacket configuration, one with ‘Distributed by Random House’ and one with ‘A Division of Random House’.
4. 1961 B-21 to B24: First and second printings have identical back dust jackets, however with differences elsewhere.
5. 1961 B-26 to B28: First and second printings have identical back dust jackets, save for the addition of a small a 5-digit code.

Beginner Books® With Unique Dust Jacket

Three first edition Beginner Books have dust jackets that were not used on any other books in the series. The dust jackets were unique to the first edition book.

The 1957 and early-1958 printings of The Cat In The Hat, the first Beginner Book, has a unique back dust jacket which was not used on other books in the series.

The two other books with unique dust jacket backs are Hop On Pop, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. While the back dust jacket of most Beginner Books listed the other books in the series, the dust jacket backs for these two books contains pre-publication reviews of the particular book.

• For Hop On Pop, the top of the dust jacket back states "About HOP ON POP, educators say:" followed by five reviews.
• For One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, the top of the dust jacket back states "EXPERTS IN THE READING FIELD ACCLAIM", followed by three reviews.

For both Hop On Pop and One Fish, these unique back DJ’s were only used on the first printings - without the dust jacket, it is not possible to identify a true first edition of either book.

Price Clipped Dust Jackets

It is common to find collectible books where the dust jacket’s front flap right top or bottom corner has been cut off, therefore no price is present. With the exception of The Cat In The Hat, all printings of Beginner Books covered in this guide have dust jacket price of $1.95. The price will be printed on the front dust jacket flap either in the form "195/195" or "$1.95".

The first Beginner Book, The Cat In The Hat, published in March 1957 originally sold for $2.00, but the price was reduced in late-1957/early-1958 to $1.95.

From 1958 to 1972 Beginner Books remained at a selling price of $1.95. Random House raised the price to $2.50 in 1972.

Therefore in only one instance - The Cat In The Hat - is the price on the dust jacket necessary to identify a first edition Beginner Book.

Beginner Books® Dust Jacket Summary

From 1958-to-1967 there should only be 10 annual Beginner Book dust jacket backs. However, such is life, I have identified 22 different Beginner Book dust jacket backs over that period. The reader can find them listed and pictured chronologically in Chapter 52 ‘Beginner Books Dust Jackets.’

The dust jackets have been enumerated 'A'-to-'T' in chronological order. This should prove useful in identifying a first edition Beginner Book, and also in determining the publication date of a later printing.

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The following is a summary table of each of the Beginner Book dust jackets varieties in chronological order. Click on any image to expand it to full resolution.

Booksellers and book collectors can use this table of images as a means to date their Beginner Book.

For example, a copy of The Cat In The Hat with a DJ similar to dust jacket Back 'F' can be dated to around 1960. Similarly, a copy of Green Eggs and Ham with a DJ similar to dust jacket Back 'L' can be dated to around 1963. We've come across copies of The Cat In The Hat with dust jackets 'A', 'B', 'D', 'F', 'H', 'L', 'P', 'Q', and 'R'. In theory a copy of The Cat In The Hat should exist with a DJ similar to dust jacket Backs 'C', 'G', 'M', 'N', and 'O', however we have not yet come across them.

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See Beginner Book Fronts for first edition identification of the first 50 Beginner Books.

This information is from the First Edition Identification Guide: Beginner Books (2024, Flying Moose Books), by Stan Zielinski.

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© Stan Zielinski
A serious collector having fun with fun books.