The Father Christmas Letters

UK precedence confirmed, and the census claim stands. George Allen & Unwin published on 2 September 1976; Houghton Mifflin, Boston, followed on 19 October 1976, roughly seven weeks later, so the A&U is the true first. Both are collected. The US first was typeset as for the Allen & Unwin 1976 first edition, runs to 48 pages, carries ISBN 0-395-24981-3, and — unlike the UK — was issued in a priced dust jacket, with price present at the flap; the first US printing of October 1976 ran to 40,000 copies, followed by a second printing in 1977 and a third in July 1978. The fastest UK/US discriminator is therefore the jacket itself: jacketed means Houghton Mifflin, unjacketed pictorial boards means Allen & Unwin. No original-language question arises.