Book Collecting & 'Traveling Through The Dark'

I've done some research into the copy of Traveling Through The Dark I found at my local used bookstore, and found that it is not a first edition. According to First Editions of Today and How to Tell Them (4th ed., by Wanda Underhill, Berkeley, CA: Peacock Press, 1965), Harper & Row placed the words "First Edition" on the verso (copyright page) of books printed in letterpress. I confirmed that the book was printed with letterpress by the presence of ligatures, or joined characters, a common practice in letterpress to save space and ink.

While these aren't very clear, here is a scan of ligatures from the poem "Elegy" (page 13)--the "f" connected to the next letter in the words "cornfield" and "flower".






And here is the verso, which lacks any mention of the book being a first edition or first printing.





While it would be nice to own a first edition of Stafford's first book to be printed by a major press and the winner of the National Book Award, this volume is in very good condition, and likely worth more than the very reasonable purchase price. But the literary value of the poems themselves is the most rewarding.