The Fountainhead

The census claim is confirmed. Bobbs-Merrill, 1943, is the sole true first; Rand wrote in English, so no original-language edition exists. The first British edition is Cassell & Co., London, 1947 — black cloth, gilt lettering and a gilt laurel-wreath device on the spine, 643 pages — collected separately as the UK first and holding no precedence over the American. Bobbs-Merrill issued a series of small early printings through the war years because of paper rationing, so early Bobbs-Merrill printings are numerous and are frequently mistaken for the first.