ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
[p. xi]: Motto by R. L. Stevenson
[Text: 1-448]

The size is 19 x 13.5 cm.

The colophon on page [450] provides detailed information about the type-face, listing its origin and spatial characteristics, the binding, and the paper. The artist Alan B. Beddoe, who is acknowledged on the lining paper for the "cover and jacket design", is named here again. On pp. [451-452], eight other titles from Graphic Publishers' repertoire are advertised.

Unlike the three 1928 editions, this First Edition needs no further qualification than the date 1927.

The first edition of A Search for America appeared in October 1927. It was published by Henry C. Miller, an enthusiastic young man who endeavoured to market "nothing but Canadian books by Canadians and for Canadians" (Miller to Grove, 30.10.1926, UM Archives, Grove Collections). The slogan on The Graphic Publishers Ltd. stationery read "Well-Made Canadian Literature" in 1926, and "Canadian Books of Consequence" in 1928. Relations with Grove in Rapid City, Manitoba, became quickly strained when Miller accepted the book for publication in late 1926, but wanted it cut down to 100,000 words.

In his reply of November 14, 1926 (Grove, Letters, p. 40-41), Grove adopts a tone somewhere in between an aloof celebrity and a pouting child. He says that once before, with Settlers, he "has spoiled a good book by cutting it to the bone," that the Search is already "less than one-half of the original work," and that he refuses to turn it into a short story. He himself is not terribly interested in having it published. Friends have urged him to submit it for publication, fearing that he might burn it. He admits that the book "is largely autobiographical," claims that it has slumbered in his drawers for thirty years, and that posthumous publication would probably have the advantage of increasing the book's value. He then continues with name-dropping, and hints at negotiations with rival publishers, just as Greve had done some twenty years earlier: for an edition of selected love letters by Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, Greve was playing Insel Publishers against S. Fischer Verlag, who eventually published them in 1905.

That Grove's Search for America was published in October 1927, we know from the "First Reprinting" of June 1928 (p. [iv], verso of title-page). It was quite a success. Already in February 1928, Miller proudly reported that 500 copies had been ordered by the newly created Carillon Book Club, as its first book selection (see description of [no.2] below). It was being mailed to the Club's members in January and February of 1928. This transaction brought the sales of the first three or four months up to 1,400 copies. Based on these promising figures, Miller correctly anticipated that by June 1928, all 6,000 copies of the first edition would be sold, and that a reprint edition would be required (see no.3 below).

The preliminaries, the text, the pagination and the layout of the first three editions by Graphic Publishers were identical. Minor differences in size, binding, colophon information and advertisement are pointed out below as required.

The First Graphic Edition has orange cardboard covers with a black linen spine, which shows in gold lettering the title above "Grove", as well as the Graphic Publishers' emblem, a Thunderbird within a circle. The lining papers shown [here from the 1928 reprint edition] have small squares which are horizontally aligned, each one holding a circle, with either the Thunderbird, an eye, or a fox. Black and orange rows alternate. In the upper third, the pattern of a black row is interrupted for the title and authorship statement. In the lower third, two black squares say: "Cover & Jacket by Alan B. Beddoe." This first edition and the two subsequent ones published by Graphic Publishers in 1928, have a running title illustration, which also shows two boats with bulging sails above a stylized wave pattern, near the outside margin.

2. The Carillon Edition (Graphic Publishers, Ottawa, January & February 1928):
[BISON Record]

[p.iii]: title-page, identical with 1927 1st ed., A Search for America / by Frederick Philip Grove / "America is a continent, not a country" / The Graphic Publishers, Limited / Ottawa, Canada
[p. iv, verso of title-page: blank].
[p. viii]: Copyright 1927 / By Frederick Philip Grove / (at the bottom, in capital letters): PRINTED IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
[p. xi]: Motto by R. L. Stevenson
[Text: 1-448]

The size, 19 x 13.5 cm., corresponds to the dimensions of the First Edition of October 1927.

Colophon [p. 450] and advertisements [p.451-452] are as in the First Edition.

This Graphic edition distributed through the Carillon Club also has the running title above stylized waves and two bulging sails near the outside margin.

The Carillon Edition needs to be further qualified by the date "January 1928."

The Carillon Edition consists of 500 copies taken from the first print run of 6,000 copies. The only difference in comparison to the first edition concerns the binding and the pattern on the lining paper. These books were bound in dark-blue, laminated linen, with an embossed cathedral on the front cover. The lining paper is patterned with pale-blue, concentric circles within small squares, which are arranged in vertical rows. The pattern is interrupted in the centre with a cathedral in an oblong rectangle. It appears on both sides of the inside back cover, and on the left inside front cover. Instead of a cathedral, the rectangle on the right side of the inside front cover states: "This book has been chosen as the first to be distributed to the Booklovers of the Carillon Book Club of Canada. This is number …, And is the property of …" The copy in the University of Manitoba Rare Book Room is no. 451. The name of the original owner has been erased, but appears to have been "Armstrong."

3. The First Reprint Edition (Graphic Publishers, Ottawa, June, 1928):
[BISON Record]

[p.iii]: title-page, A Search for America / by Frederick Philip Grove / "America is a continent, not a country" / The Graphic Publishers / Limited, Ottawa, Canada
[p. iv]: verso of title-page, First Edition, October, 1927 / First reprinting, June, 1928
[p. viii]: Copyright 1927 / By Frederick Philip Grove ; [at the bottom, in capital letters]: PRINTED IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
[p. xi]: Motto by R. L. Stevenson
[Text: 1-448]

The size is 21.5 x 14 cm., which allows for more generous margins.

The colophon on p. [450] and the advertisements on p. [451-452] of the First Edition and the Carillon Edition are omitted.

This Graphic Reprint Edition has the running title of the two previous editions (stylized waves and two bulging sails near the outside margin).

This Graphic Reprint Edition needs to be qualified by "June 1928."

The First Graphic Reprint Edition differs only slightly from the First Edition of October 1927. Instead of orange cardboard covers, it has red ones. The margins are more generous, which affects the size (21.5 cm high, instead of 19 cm, and 14 rather than 13.5 cm wide), and the overall impression. Whereas the verso of the title page in the 1927 Graphic and the January 1928 Carillon Editions is blank, it states here "First Edition, October, 1927 / First reprinting, June, 1928." In the front and back lining papers, an additional black square is reserved for text which states "This is a Miller Book." The exhaustive note concerning paper, type, and printing details on page [450] is omitted, leaving this page blank. The two following pages, which contained advertisements for eight titles with Graphic Publishers' imprints, are also left blank in the June 1928 First Reprint Edition.This edition is still easily found on the antiquarian book market. One copy in the Rare Book Room at the University of Manitoba was donated by relatives of Catherine Grove (née Wiens) in 1998. It has a note in her handwriting: "To Grace / from / Aunt Catherine /Jan 9/49." Diagonally across the title page, the same copy is autographed by Grove.

4. Louis Carrier's "American Edition" (Montreal, October 1928):
[BISON Record]

[p.v]: title-page,A Search for America: The Odyssey of an Immigrant / Frederick Philip Grove / Louis Carrier & Co. / At the Mercury / New York – London – Montreal / 1928
[p. vi]: verso of title-page, Copyright, 1928, / by Louis Carrier & Co / Copyright, Canada, 1927 / by Frederick Philip Grove / The jacket and end leaves designed by J. M. Meekison / Printed in the United States of America at the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass.
[p. vii]: "Author's Note" signed "Rapid City, Man., / December, 1926 / FPG"; text as in all previous editions, but in italics.
[p. ix]: shortened dedication to Meredith, Swinburne, Hardy.
[Text: 1-392]

The size, 21.5 x 15 cm., corresponds roughly to the dimensions of Graphic Publishers' First Reprint Edition of June 1928 (21.5 x 14.5 cm).

The Louis Carrier Edition has neither colophon nor advertisement.

This edition needs to be further qualified by the date "October 1928."

The so-called "American Edition" was published in October 1928 by Louis Carrier at his new and short-lived establishment, the Mercury Press. Headquarters were in Montreal, but offices were also maintained in New York and in London, England. In fact, the imprint of this book mentions first New York and London, while Montreal is accorded only the third place. The title page information of the "American Edition" appears in a frame of stylized flower-buds. An icon, depicting a man in half-profile with a winged helmet, appears as the publisher's emblem above the imprint, and on the spine. It represents the winged messenger Mercury, since "Louis Carrier & Co" in the imprint is followed by the words, in italics, "At the Mercury." The Carrier edition is the first to have the revealing subtitle: "The Odyssey of an Immigrant." The book shares the generous margins with the Graphic Reprint Edition of June 1928, but the pagination is significantly different: the text starts with the Stevenson motto as page 1, and covers 392 pages. The previously wordy dedication to George Meredith, Algernon Swinburne, and Thomas Hardy has been trimmed down to a modest five lines on page [ix]. Note that Grove had, as Greve, translated much of Meredith' and some of Swinburne's works between 1902 and 1909.

The binding is in coated linen of a rich, warm tone of yellow. The front and back lining papers depict a map of North America. Certain place names and locations, particularly in "the Dakotas", have been deliberately distorted. The verso of the title page specifies that the map was, like the dust-cover, designed by J. M. Meekison, and states "Copyright 1928, by Louis Carrier & Co. / Copyright, Canada, 1927, by Frederick Philip Grove / Printed in the United States of America at the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass."

The copy of this edition in the University of Manitoba Archives' Rare Book Room is autographed on the fly-leaf: "A. L. Gordon, Feb. 15/1929." One day after his fiftieth birthday on February 14, 1929, FPG was on his third and last Canadian Club Lecture Tour which had taken him from coast to coast within a year. From January 22 to March, 1929, he lectured in eastern Canada, and mostly in Ontario. A letter Grove wrote to his wife Catherine, also on February 15, 1929, allows to situate the location where Grove autographed Mr. Gordon's copy: that day he was lecturing in Sarnia, Ontario, where he was staying at the Hotel Vendome (Grove, ln+AAU8520&howsearch=k">Letters, p. 240).

NOTE: It is not clear how Grove and Louis Carrier met, but it is likely that it was during one of Grove's three Canadian Club Tours in 1928 and 1929. Since Carrier's publishing house ceased to exist around 1930, it is even more remarkable that Grove's only known Canadian translation, Gustav Amann's The Legacy of Sun Yatsen, also appeared with Carrier's imprint in 1929.

The Louis Carrier edition of October 1928 is the basis of all significant future editions. For the present electronic edition of Grove's first revealing autobiographical novel, however, the original Graphic Edition of October 1927 has been chosen.

5. The Ryerson Edition (Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1939):
[BISON Record]

[p.v]: title-page, A Search for America / by Frederick Philip Grove / The Ryerson Press / Toronto
[p. vi]: verso of title page, Copyright, Canada, 1927 / by Frederick Philip Grove / Copyright, 1928 / by Louis Carrier & Co / Copyright, Canada, 1939, by the Ryerson Press, Toronto / All rights reserved
[p. vii-viii]: Author's Note to the Fourth Edition
[p. ix]: short dedication to Meredith, Swinburne, Hardy
[p. 1]: Motto by R. L. Stevenson
[Text: 1-392]

The size, 21.5 x 15 cm, corresponds exactly to the dimensions of the Louis Carrier Edition.

There are neither colophon nor advertisements in this edition.

The Ryerson edition obviously draws on the very same printing plates of the October 1928 Louis Carrier Edition. Size, lining paper, and pagination are therefore identical.

This edition needs no further qualification than the date 1939.

The brief "Author's Note" of December 1926 in all previous editions has been replaced by a preface of almost two pages. Here, Grove addresses the question to what extent his book was autobiographical, and obliquely refers to Goethe with the terms "fact and fiction." In the manuscript draft of this 1939 "Preface", the reference to Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit is explicit (UMA, Mss 2, Box 6, Fd. 14: Notebook, p.[6-7]). It is interesting to see, that Grove's notebook actually contains the beginning of his second autobiography In Search of Myself which was not published until 1946. And quite a few chapters in this book cover the same ground, but elaborate and/or recant details of the author's fabricated earlier autobiography.

The Rare Book Room copy of the 1939 Ryerson edition is bound in reddish-brown leather, with embossed gold letters on the spine. On the cover, there is one of Grove's "FPG" monograms, here in rounded shape. On the linen cover of Grove's second autobiography In Search of Myself (ISM, Macmillan, 1946), he uses more angular, gothic style letters which he drew for Lorne Pierce in a letter dated February 11, 1939 (Grove, Letters, p. 350). These, Grove admits, were designed for him by an "artist friend" a long time ago. Here we have most certainly a reference to August Endell, who created several such monograms. One of these which he designed for himself and his wife Else Ploetz in 1901, still exists on an envelope in the Marcus Behmer Collection of the Munich Stadtbibliothek. Another, which he created for O.A.H. Schmitz, has been found in the Deutsche Literatur-Archiv in Marbach.

Further editions:

In 1947, an abridged edition was issued by Ryerson (vi, 296 p.), "with suggestions for study by J. F. Swayze." It has been reprinted many times. Since 1971, A Search for America has been published in paperback format, as number 76 of McClelland & Stewart's New Canadian Library series. This popular edition reintroduces the subtitle of the Carrier edition, "The Odyssey of an Immigrant", and still adheres to the pagination of Carrier's October 1928 edition. The copyright for the paperback edition was Mrs. Frederick Grove's; for Stanley E. McMullin's introduction, McClelland & Stewart owned the rights. The cover designs have varied over the years, but with the re-issuing of the text, the lengthy 1939 "Author's Note" has been moved from the front to the end, which has repercussions on the pagination [text: p. 11-458, followed by the 1939 "Note", p. 459-460]. The subtitle is omitted again on the title page. One preliminary page informs the reader about "The Author" [p. i], incorporating some of the biographical information D. O. Spettigue had unearthed in 1971 about both FPGs and published in his FPG: The European Years in 1973. W. H. New provided a substantial new "Afterword" (p. 461-468), and a long list of Grove's books appears on page [469].

F. P. Grove's A Search for America
The 2005 "blue" e-Edition / Revised by Gaby Divay ©2005

Publishing History of Grove's
A Search for America

F. P. Grove's A Search for America The 2005 "blue" e-Edition / Revised by Gaby Divay ©2005

Publishing History of Grove's A Search for America

F. P. Grove's A Search for America
The 2005 "blue" e-Edition / Revised by Gaby Divay ©2005

Publishing History of Grove's
A Search for America