The Black Prince

The Chatto & Windus London edition of 1973 precedes the New York issue and is the true first; the census claim is confirmed. UK publication was in February 1973, ahead of the Viking Press (New York) first American edition of the same year — xviii, 366 pp., ISBN 0 670 17286 3, LCCN 72-091828 — which is bound in yellow and orange boards with purple floral decoration in a pictorial jacket and is a different setting from the Chatto. Both editions are collected and the two are easily told apart by pagination, binding and jacket; the London Chatto is the senior. Some US dealers loosely style the Viking simply "the printed pricet edition" — read that as first American edition. The novel took the 1973 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the 1973 Booker.