The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'

The census claim needs correction on precedence. The American edition PRECEDES the English by a matter of days: Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, published it in late November 1897 under the substituted title 'The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle', ahead of Heinemann's London publication in early December 1897. Both are collected and both should be named — the Dodd, Mead is the first edition by date, while the Heinemann carries Conrad's intended title and is the first English edition. The Dodd, Mead has its own trap: roughly 1,000 copies were printed in late 1897 and, because publication straddled the season, the printers produced BOTH 1897 and 1898 title pages. Copies with the 1897 title page are the first issue (Cagle A3b(1)); the 1898-dated copies were distributed in spring 1898 and listed in Publishers Weekly on 12 March (Cagle A3b(2), second issue). It is bound in original pictorial light blue-grey mottled cloth.