The Fairy Caravan

The census reversal is correct, with one refinement worth publishing. There was no UK trade edition in 1929 — Potter thought the stories "too personal, too autobiographical" for British readers. Realising that US-only publication would leave her without British copyright, she had McKay ship 100 sets of American sheets to be privately published at Ambleside, Westmorland by the printer George Middleton: the first nine leaves (pp. 1–18) were reprinted locally on laid paper watermarked "Abbey Mills / Greenfield", issued under her married name Beatrix Heelis, without the preface written for American readers, and with an added leaf of sketches of her dogs. Some copies are inscribed by Potter on the title page asserting British copyright and entry at Stationers' Hall, with "Philadelphia" struck through in the imprint by her hand. Both the McKay Philadelphia edition and the Ambleside copyright issue are collected. THE REFINEMENT: because no priority is established between the McKay trade issue, the McKay signed limited and the Ambleside English issue, the McKay trade edition should not be described as "the" first without that qualification. Frederick Warne did not publish a UK trade edition until July 1952, after Potter's death — that is a "first thus", never a first.