The Rape of the Lock

The census note is confirmed, with one refinement worth publishing: the poem's true first appearance in print is the anonymous two-canto version, and there it is titled "The Rape of the Locke" — with the final "e" — printed at pp. [353]-376 of Bernard Lintot's "Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. By Several Hands" (London, May 1712; Griffith 6; ESTC T5777; octavo). Pope sold that two-canto text to Lintott in March 1712 and was later paid to expand it; the 1714 Lintott separate is the form universally called "the first edition of The Rape of the Lock," but it is the first of the enlarged text, not the poem's first printing. Two traps follow: leaves extracted or disbound from the 1712 Miscellany are offered as a "first edition" of the poem although no separate 1712 printing exists, and the spelling "Locke" versus "Lock" is itself the quickest way to tell the 1712 miscellany text from the 1714 book. There is no UK/US or original-language precedence question — Pope wrote in English and both printings are London, Lintott.