Our Lady of the Flowers

The French clandestine original of 1943 is the true first, and the census is correct on this point. The first edition IN ENGLISH is Bernard Frechtman's translation published by Paul Morihien, Paris, 30 April 1949 — a subscribers' edition of 500 copies in publisher's cloth with Jean Cocteau's portrait of Genet on the front board; this, not Grove, is the first English. The census's 'first trade English Grove, New York 1963' requires correction: the Olympia Press (Paris) mass-market issue of 1957 in the Traveller's Companion Series precedes Grove, so Grove 1963 is properly the first AMERICAN edition rather than the first trade edition in English. The 1943 French, the Morihien 1949 English, and the Grove 1963 American are each separately collected.