The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

The census direction is CORRECT but the year needs correcting. The batch gives 1759; the books themselves say 1760. The accurate statement: Volumes I-II were PRINTED at York by Ann Ward in late December 1759 and issued with title-pages DATED 1760 — catalogued in the scholarly literature as "1760 [i.e. 1759]." Cite it as 1760 (York printing, December 1759), never as a bare 1759, because no 1759-dated title-page exists. The census is also right that the York I-II are the prize and that mixed sets are the norm: Dodsley bought the copyright in March 1760 and his London second edition of I-II is far commoner than the York first, so nine-volume "first edition" sets are routinely made up with Dodsley I-II. There is no UK-vs-US or original-language precedence issue — Sterne wrote in English and the York printing is the first appearance anywhere. A complete first is the York I-II plus the London Dodsley III-IV plus the Becket & Dehondt V-IX, with Sterne's signatures in V, VII and IX.