The Stranger

CORRECTION to the census. The French Gallimard 1942 true first is confirmed, but the census claim that 'Knopf is generally given priority' in English is wrong: Hamish Hamilton (London, 1946) published Gilbert's translation FIRST, as The Outsider, and precedes Alfred A. Knopf (New York, 1946). Hamish Hamilton changed Gilbert's title to The Outsider — considering it more striking, and to avoid collision with Maria Kuncewiczowa's Cudzoziemka, then newly published in London as The Stranger; Knopf had already typeset the book under Gilbert's original title when told of the change and kept The Stranger, which is why the British and American titles have diverged ever since. Both are collected: Hamish Hamilton as the first in English (and the only one with the Connolly introduction), Knopf as the first American. Matthew Ward's 1988 Knopf translation is 'first thus'.