Thank you both for chipping in!
The first edition is definitely from December, 1922–that’s when the English Catalogue of Books lists it as being published, and that’s when the first reviews of it are from, all mentioning it as a new book (the earliest I have is from the Leeds Mercury from December 19). (The agreement between the reviews and the Catalogue mean that we can probably trust the Catalogue when it says Robert Vermiere’s Cocktails: How to Mix Them was published in May, 1922–a good seven months earlier.)
I left out the early edition of Harry’s book specially published for the London vintners, Christopher & Co. This consists of the plates for the first/second edition, with the introduction on bartending replaced by notes on wines and a few interpolated pages of additional drinks. It must be from 1923.
The fourth, fifth and sixth editions could be early 1926, late 1926, and 1927, respectively, if we include the founding year (1575) in Bols’s count of how many years it had been in business. I think this is more likely than 1927/1928, because of Barflies and Cocktails, which really does seem to be the seventh edition.
If a separate seventh edition/impression of Harry’s ABC was published, it is extremely unlikely that it would have evaded all the collectors and booksellers over the years. Harry’s ABC has always been a popular book, and judging by the great many circulating copies, sales must have been fairly extensive.
Barflies and Cocktails was reviewed in the Paris edition of the New York Herald in September, 1927, so that gives us a firm date. (I get the equivalent of 327 numbered drinks, lumping the “Various Continental Beverages” together as one like the other editions do; nine drinks are added to the 5th edition and seven subtracted from it, by my count; I will count again, though–if Martin says something, I wouldn’t bet against it).
Thanks for adding the Formulario del cocktelero, Fernando–I knew there was a Spanish edition, but I don’t have access to a copy and couldn’t remember when it was from. I’ve never seen a copy of the Harry Portman edition; if Virginia Tech and UC Davis indeed have copies, as Worldcat says, I’d be a little surprised.
I got to 411 numbered drinks in the New Edition by counting the ones shoehorned in as x-“bis” and “ter.”
The Red Mary has to be balanced against the College Inn cocktail (tomato juice, spices and sherry) in the 10th edition (Chicago’s College Inn popularized the bottled Tomato Juice Cocktail, with the juice plus spices, in 1927, but there was also a popular College Inn bar in Paris), and this ad from the paris Edition of the New York Herald, January 3, 1931:
For what it’s worth, Harry’s Bar doesn’t appear to have been credited with the Bloody Mary until the 1967, and that was due to Petiot saying he came up with it there, not a statement from the bar itself. Eventually it embraced the claim.
So it looks like the most important editions, in terms of chronicling new drinks, are the 1st, 3rd (25 new drinks), 8th (15 new drinks from 6th), 10th (35 new drinks), 11th (16 new drinks), and the 1950s new edition (21 new drinks), plus Barflies & Cocktails.
Now to chart precisely what was added and when.