Coma

The census claim is confirmed: Little, Brown, Boston (imprint reading Boston and Toronto), 1977 is the true first. The UK issue followed the same year from Pan Books in association with Macmillan, London, 1977, per the Wellcome Collection catalogue record; the US edition holds precedence. Correction to a widespread dealer error: Coma is repeatedly catalogued as "the author's first book", which is wrong — Cook's first novel was Year of the Intern (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972). Coma is his breakthrough and the founding modern medical thriller, but it is not his debut, and copies described as his first book are misdescribed.