Le Père Goriot

The census claim needs correcting on the imprint: it is not 'Werdet, Paris' alone but a co-edition, 'Werdet, Spachmann' — Jakob-Friedrich Spachmann, a binder of Württemberg origin established in the rue Coquenard and Balzac's own regular binder, co-financed the book and appears on the title. Serialisation in the Revue de Paris in four installments (14 and 28 December 1834, 18 January and 1 February 1835) preceded the volumes, but periodical appearance does not carry book precedence. The French first is the only edition with precedence; no contemporary English edition competes. Later authorial texts are 'first thus' only: the 1839 Charpentier edition suppressed prefaces, and the text was revised again for the Furne Comédie humaine.