Dracula

The London/Westminster Constable yellow-cloth edition of 1897 is the true first; the first American edition (Doubleday & McClure Co., New York, 1899) is a separate, later first and does not precede it. Within the 1897 first printing there are two binding states: State A (priority), with no publisher's advertisement catalogue bound in at the rear; and State B, with an UNDATED Constable catalogue that lists no book published after 1897. State A's priority is established by physical evidence — all of Stoker's presentation copies inscribed in May-June 1897, the earliest publisher's presentation copies, the legal-deposit copy, and the review copies are without the catalogue. Author-inscribed presentation copies (May-June 1897), being catalogue-less, sit at the top of the collecting hierarchy and exemplify State A.