Howl's Moving Castle

Census claim — US-first precedence for a UK author — is supported, but the month-level dates in circulation are not. Two independent lines of evidence favour Greenwillow: the LoC record is an original CIP record created in September 1985 for the 1986 US publication and carries no "Originally published" note (contrast the LoC-derived Eddings/Corgi record, which does carry exactly such a note, showing that LoC records prior foreign publication as a matter of practice); and specialist dealers describe the Methuen Children's Books edition (London, 1986, ISBN 0-416-61590-2, blue cloth-effect boards with yellow spine titles) as the "first British edition, first printing" — a formula the trade reserves for books first published elsewhere. Caveat published deliberately: the widely repeated months (Greenwillow April 1986 / Methuen November 1986) trace back to Wikipedia's infobox, which is itself internally inconsistent, and were not independently confirmed. Both 1986 editions are collected — the Greenwillow as the first, the Methuen as the first British edition.