Hunger (Sult)

No significant book-club edition is a common trap for the original 1890 Sult, which is a genuinely scarce Scandinavian first. The traps here are different: (1) Hamsun's later revised Norwegian/Danish editions and Gyldendal reprintings (revisions in 1899, 1907, 1916) being mistaken for the 1890 first — verify the P.G. Philipsens Forlag, Copenhagen, 1890 imprint and the 333-pp. collation; (2) later owner rebindings (half sheep, marbled boards) being taken for a publisher's issue, and any single cloth color (red, green, yellow, or blue) being treated as THE first binding when the publisher issued several; and (3) for the English, later Knopf printings of the Egerton translation (the sixth printing of May 1921 and after was censored for sexual content, reduced from 266 to 263 pp.) being taken for the 1899 Leonard Smithers first English edition. Always confirm the Smithers, London, 1899 imprint for the English first.