The Peter Rabbit Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series189.htm) is a 20 book series. Books 5-8 were published in 1921 and thereafter the rest of the books were printed on an almost yearly basis. By looking at the ads in the back of the books most of these volumes (#5-20) can be dated fairly easily. The same cannot be said of volumes 1-4.

1. Tale of Peter Rabbit
2. How Peter Rabbit Went to Sea
3. Peter Rabbit on the Farm
4. Peter Rabbit’s Christmas

The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published first in 1904 and was printed in two different formats before it morphed into the Format 3 style books. See http://henryaltemus.com/peter_rabbit/peterrabbit.htm for those details. (This review is not meant to discuss the first and second editions of The Tale of Peter Rabbit published between 1904 and early 1917.)

In 1917 the new Format 3 Wee Books for Wee Folks included the four Peter Rabbit stories. In 1918 the four titles were combined into their own Peter Rabbit Series.

It can be difficult to determine the edition of the first four Peter Rabbit Wee Books if you do not have a dust jacket.

With the dust jacket you can narrow down the dates to 1917-1918, 1918 or later and 1921 or later. I thought I would review some dating issues here.

With the dust jacket dating books becomes easier. The earliest jacket had two Peter Rabbit books listed on the back with the rest of the Wee Books. This is a 1917 (and early 1918) book. This jacket style was published before the Peter Rabbit books were spun off into their own series. I believe that at that time all four Peter Rabbit books were part of the Wee Books series. I have never seen the jacket below however listing four Peter Rabbit’s.

The next jacket lists the first four Peter Rabbit titles on the jacket reverse. This book would be dated between 1918 and 1920. The dust jacket reverse that lists 8 Peter Rabbit’s dates from 1921.

But what if you do not have a dust jacket.

First look at the frontispiece. If it does not say frontispiece under the frontispiece, then it is the very early first edition published in 1917 and early 1918. Also by 1921 all the Peter Rabbit books stated Altemus’ Peter Rabbit Series at the top of the title page.

Secondly note the endpapers. If they are plain, then the book was published between 1917 and 1922.

Next look at the lettering on the front cover. The first four books had yellow (Christmas is red) lettering. These books were published between 1917 and 1920.

Here is one other interesting tip although it does not apply to the pre-1921 Peter Rabbit’s. If your book says Printed in the United States of America at the bottom of the copyright page, then it was published in 1922 or later. There are no exceptions that I am aware of.
Note the examples below.