First Edition Identification Guide: Beginner Books Now Published!

“This First Edition Identification Guide assists children’s book collectors and booksellers to accurately identify first edition Beginner Books.

Beginner Books started after the 1957 publication of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat In The Hat, as a series of early readers which entertained children with colorful pictures accompanied by bouncy words, while at the same time helping them learn to read. Beginner Books transformed the way in which school children learned to read in America, and the first editions have become highly collectible.

This Guide provides detailed information on the first fifty Beginner Books, from B-1 to B-50, spanning the years 1957-to-1967. There is a chapter per book providing a thorough bibliography, along with photographs of the first edition book, title page, copyright, and the dust jacket front, front flap, and back flap.

Each chapter clearly provides the first edition identification points for the book and dust jacket. This Guide serves to clarify misunderstandings and incorrect identifications circulating throughout the collectible book market by providing the identification points for second and later printings, and to describe the clear differentiation from the first printing.

Additionally each chapter provides information for the book collector to contemplate the potential scarcity and collectibility of each first edition Beginner Book.”