Hard Times. For These Times

The census claim is correct as to publisher and year but should be stated precisely: the true first APPEARANCE is the serialization in Household Words (1 April - 12 August 1854), and uniquely among the mature novels there was no separate monthly-parts issue, so the 1854 Bradbury & Evans one-volume book IS the first edition in book form - the phrase every major catalog uses. There is a genuine Anglo-American precedence wrinkle the census omits: the London book form (7 August 1854) precedes both American editions - T. L. McElrath, New York (8 August 1854), who paid for advance sheets, and Harper & Brothers, New York (9 August 1854), who typeset from McElrath to undercut him a day later. McElrath is the first American edition; the Harper cloth issue is a later Harper printing and is only 'first American edition bound in cloth' (a first-thus trap). London holds precedence outright.