The Purple Cloud

The true first is the London edition: Chatto & Windus, September 1901 — the census claim is confirmed. The novel had appeared earlier in serial form, illustrated by J. J. Cameron, in The Royal Magazine, Vol. V, nos. 27-30 and Vol. VI, nos. 31-32, January-June 1901; the serial precedes the book but is a magazine appearance, not an edition. The 1901 Chatto text runs to 463 pages and is the longest version, preferred by many readers. Shiel drafted three versions between 1901 and 1929; the Victor Gollancz, London, 1929 edition is a substantially revised and condensed text of 288 pages. Both the 1901 original text and the 1929 revision are collected, but the Gollancz is a 'first thus' — first edition of the revised text — and never the first edition of the novel.