The Rainbow

Methuen, London, 30 September 1915 is the true first and the only edition carrying Lawrence's complete text — the census is confirmed on both counts. The book circulated roughly six weeks before Bow Street magistrates ordered it suppressed as obscene on 13 November 1915; Methuen did not defend the action, was fined and complied with the order to destroy stock, so the majority of the 2,500 copies were destroyed and no copies were distributed by Methuen after 13 November 1915. The census date for the American edition is corrected: McDonald records the first American edition as published from new plates, in expurgated form, by B. W. Huebsch, New York, in 1916 — not 1915. Some sources report that it was in fact issued on 30 November 1915 with an 1916 title-page date in order to establish the American copyright, so the 1915/1916 dating is genuinely contested and both are noted rather than one asserted. In no account is it a co-first: it is a later, separately-set, expurgated edition.