Identifying the true first of War with the United States is difficult.

To begin with, this title is notorious for having its "First Modern Library Edition" slug remain in place in printings subsequent to the first. Further, there were two variations of dust jacket seemingly used at the same time for the first book printing: One has a list of 278 titles on the dust jacket's inverse while the other's inverse is blank. Both indicate "over 250 titles" on the back panel. And finally, the book was printed with both thinner and thicker paper.

Here's what ML bibliographer Barry Neavill has to say on the matter: "I believe the printing on thicker paper without a list of titles inside the jacket is the first. My War with the United States was published in October 1941, a few months before Pearl Harbor; later printings were made during wartime when paper shortages were a continuing problem.

"My War with the United States, like The Thurber Carnival, was printed by offset lithography, which accounts for retention of the First statement on subsequent printings (see my column in MLC 44). If the first printing jacket was printed by the same printer (and it looks to me as if it's also printed by offset lithography) that would explain the lack of a list. Other ML jackets were printed letterpress, and the ML probably only had letterpress plates for the seasonal lists of titles inside the jackets"

So the slight preponderance of evidence says that the true first is the one with the blank inverse dust jacket on a book with thicker paper. For a series of discussions on this maddening issue, see this list of threads from the archives.

First binding style:     8

First inverse DJ number:      278 OR none on a blank inverse

Dates in print:     1941 - 1947

Toledano number:   175.2