The Asphalt Jungle

US Knopf (New York) 1949 is the true first edition; the census claim is confirmed. The first British edition followed a year later — Macdonald, London, 1950, an octavo in black cloth — and is collected as the first UK edition only, not as the true first. Any later hardcover reissue, and the paperback and film-tie-in appearances following John Huston's 1950 adaptation, are reprints or "first thus."