Original Publication Date?

When adding a book, by entering the title, there are multiple editions to choose from, but I'm interested in the original publication date, which is not always easy to find. Is there somewhere to look this up, within LibraryThing? or elsewhere? I don't need to sort by that date, just would like to know when each of my books was written, to place the book in it's proper time.

The copyright date should be a pretty good indication of when the book was written, in most cases.

That's the date that comes up on many Amazon records, where the publication date isn't stated. In some cases, my copy will show a date (in an ad, or for an introduction) 25 years later then the supposed "publication date." I think I saw one paperback, probably from the 1960s, shown as published in 1913. Right!

>2 "The copyright date should be a pretty good indication of when the book was written, in most cases."

Um, I wouldn't put too much stock in that, especially for older books. My copy of The Portrait of a Lady has a copyright date of 1975 (Henry James died in 1916). My copy of The Pickwick Papers has a copyright of 1993.

> 2
I think I saw one paperback, probably from the 1960s, shown as published in 1913.

But that's probably quite accurate, myshelves. Your edition may be copyrighted in the '60s, but that has nothing to do with the first publication date. This is, in fact, certain in the case of classics. To take an extreme example, I guarantee you that the copyright dates in any of my several copies of The Iliad are nowhere near the original "publication" date!

No, my objection is that the publication date of a book can't be years before a date that shows up in the book. And my 75¢ paperback wasn't published in 1913. My old hardcover with a list in the back of the company's other books for the year 1920 can't have been published in 1904. But many sellers list copyright date as publication date.

In some cases, the copyright date for an introduction or other additional material may be the best clue to the publication date.

As for the copyright date reflecting original publication, I did say "in most cases." :-) If the book is a classic, one can probably google or check a reader's encyclopedia to find out the date of original publication.

I'm also interested in seeing the original publication date of my books. Unfortunately, there's still no good way to have LT do this automatically.

My solution was to research every book in my collection, whether through copyright information, a wikipedia article, or google search, and to update the "date" field manually. I used the publication date for single works, the author's death date for collected works, and the publication date of the latest work for anthologies. Now I can sort by date in catalog view and have a complete chronology from The Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BCE for the sake of argument, or -2100) through Muses, Madmen, and Prophets (2007).

The problem is that LT does not treat the date field numerically. Thus, BCE dates, which use a minus sign, get sorted from latest to earliest, and they don't get counted in the average date figure in "fun statistics." That puts poor Gilgamesh (-2100) next to Ovid (0008). This may not seem like a big deal--and it's not, really--but I put some hard work into this and I want it to work!

I hope this helps!

In library cataloguing rules (which is what drives the data from libraries), what is recorded is the publication date of the edition you have in your hand, not when its text was first published in whatever form. And although some editions of books will tell you when the text was first published, some editions don't. Unfortunately you have to research the original date yourself.

I found LibraryThing a couple of weeks ago, and have started adding my books in spurts. I think I love you, Library Thing! In entering my books, it was the dating issue that prompted me to look up more information through your groups. My question: Is there an "easier" way to find dates (publication, printing, etc.) than to web search each individual book? I'm wondering if there is, somewhere in these pages, a list of links for publishers, or information on out-of-business publishing houses, regarding the books they published. Specifically, in my case, D. Lothrop Company, Boston and J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia. Thanks!

countrylife.key edition date

Off topic, but J.B. Lippincott, Philadelphia still exists. But, they don't publish fiction anymore, only medical books and magazines; and you won't find any info about their old fiction books on there website... Lippincott Williams and Wilkins

Welcome to LT, countrylife!

It's hard to answer without knowing the specific books you're interested in, but you might look at the online catalogs at the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov, or the New York Public Library, www.nypl.org. You should see entries for the various editions, since both libraries have fairly complete collections. Unfortunately, this does mean searching book by book.

I had the exact same question as the original poster and found this thread, and from reading the replies I gather that the answer is 'no'! :)

I guess what we're looking for is the year of first copyright for the work, and not the year of publication of an edition. I'm quite surprised that it isn't incorporated into each work's information, as it seems to be a fairly fundamental attribute of a work!

Being a non-librarian, I was surprised too when I first learned this.

When I first asked why (google group era), it was explained to me by other library people that library data information is more interested in the date of the book they have in their holdings. Not so much when the work was first published. I'm not sure why but guess that info wasn't as easily obtainable to whomever was creating the library records at the time.

(NB: I notice (cDate) come through sometimes, usually in the Publication field).

Anyway, apparently the dates in the LT's form echo the way libraries think about dates, not the way keen consumer readers and bookshelf fillers may think..

I've gotten used to it (wry grin), but have noted year of publication &/or copyright in my LT comments.
Ready for transferring into a new PUBLICATION DATE field, if we ever get one. :-)

edited to fix rogue italics

You can somewhat search Library of Congress right from LT in the Add Books section. There are little arrows by each book that comes up when you do a an LC search, clicking on it the arrow points downward and then is displayes a bunch of info on the book including date. If LC has 6 copies of a specific book in question, however, you'll have to click on each little arrow to get all the info -- it's still better than going over to the LOC catalog.

ryn_books: "That info wasn't as easily obtainable."

In the past, not obtainable at all, unless you happen to have an older copy in the library or know exactly when.

They were working off the same books you are, without the advantage of wikipedia or being able to check dates in encyclopedias, etc.

Also sometimes some publishers want to hide the original date and make people believe the old book is new.

I've been putting the publication date in the "Date" field, because I thought that's what it was for :) It didn't occur to me that I could give it my own interpretation.

I also started tagging my books with the year the work was written. By putting that tag first, I can sort on that year. Well, modulo the problem described in #6.

I find the "date of writing" far more important and interesting than the "date of publication of this edition", though. Especially with modern notions of edition, which often just mean that the book was printed by a new publisher but is otherwise completely identical to the previous edition. Many of my books are basically reprints done by a country-specific publisher.

Maybe I should move the year info from the tags to the date field, and add the publication date to the publication field. That would make sense :)

I'd like to end with a frequently-asked question: how do I determine which of the dates in the book is the publication date? Some books make it a real puzzle. For example, a recent book I added has this:

PRINTING HISTORY
Chilton edition published 1965
Berkley edition / January 1977
Twenty-eighth printing / December 1983
Thirty-first printing / June 1984
Thirty-fifth printing / December 1984

Now... why are the 28th and 31st printings listed specifically? Does that mean anything? Why is the Chilton edition listed, if it's a different edition? I picked 1977 as the publication date but I don't know if that's right.

Yes, 1977 is the right date of publication. I have no idea why certain printings are listed and not others, though maybe it has to do with the dates (Dec. and June). Anyway the last printing is always listed, if they list printings.

As for the Chilton edition, sometimes publishers want to tell the whole history of the book. I don't know why. They might be trying to tell you that the Berkley edition, being paperback was taken from the Chilton edition, which was a hardcover. Even in the world of those people who catalogue books for a living, most people ignore this; only in special collections is all this taken note of.

Is this some edition of Dune you've got?

Wow, got it in one! It's from my copy of Dune.
I actually hadn't written down which book this was from, I just collected "problem" entries so I could ask about them later. So I had to look at the book to check :)

Just as a sidelight on Dune, my cover doesn't look like any of the offerings. I must have purchased an off-beat printing way back in the early 1980's.