3 Daniel Defoe first editions are documented on this shelf, from Robinson Crusoe (The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe) (1719) to The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722) across 3 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Daniel Defoe title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
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- Robinson Crusoe (The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe) — 1719 · W. Taylor, LondonLondon: printed for W. Taylor at the Ship in Pater-Noster-Row, 1719; octavo, published 25 April 1719 in an edition of about 1,000 copies. The title-page of Part I carries NO edition statement — any 1719 title reading "The Second Edition," "The Third Edition" or "The Fourth Edition" is a later 1719 printing, not the first; Taylor ran through four editions within roughly four months. Part I has an engraved…. The census claim is CORRECT: W. Taylor, London, 25 April 1719 is the true first, and there is no earlier or foreign-language edition to displace it — Defoe wrote in English and Taylor published in London. No UK/US precedence question arises; the first American edition is much later and is not the collected form. The sequels are separate first editions completing the set, not part of the first edition of Part I:…. No book-club edition exists in the modern sense for a 1719 imprint. The documented reprint tells donors will actually meet: (1) any title-page bearing an edition statement ("The Second/Third/Fourth Edition") — these are Hutchins's later 1719-1731 printings, not the first; (2) Victorian children's and illustrated editions from 1736 onward, which are the overwhelming majority of donated Crusoes; (3) 20th-century….
- Moll Flanders (The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders) — 1722 · W. Chetwood and T. Edling, LondonFirst edition: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c.," published anonymously, London, "Printed for, and Sold by W. Chetwood, at Cato's-Head, in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden; and T. Edling, at the Prince's-Arms over-against Exerter-Change in the Strand"; octavo; signatures A-2D8 2E4, with the blank leaf A8 almost always discarded in rebinding (ESTC T70314; Moore 446; Furbank & Owens 213;…. The census entry needs correcting on the year. The true first is the London edition printed for W. Chetwood and T. Edling with a title page dated 1721, issued 27 January 1722; describing the first simply as "the 1722" inverts the real test, because a 1722 date printed on the title page marks a later edition, not the first. Note also that the imprint spells the second bookseller "T. Edling," whereas the man is…. No book-club edition of the 1721/22 octavo exists. Moll Flanders is among the most heavily reprinted English novels, so donor copies are overwhelmingly modern: Modern Library, Penguin, Oxford World's Classics, Norton Critical (ed. Albert J. Rivero), Broadview, Bantam, Dover, and print-on-demand facsimiles struck from ECCO scans. Twentieth-century illustrated editions and the many collected "Novels of Daniel….
- The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders — 1722 · Printed for, and sold by W. Chetwood, at Cato's-Head in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden; and T. Edling, at the Prince's-Arms over-against Exeter-Change in the Strand, LondonFirst edition, published anonymously — Defoe is nowhere named — on 27 January 1722. Moore 446; ESTC T70314. THE decisive point, and the one the census misses, is the title-page date: the first edition's imprint is a garbled Roman numeral, "MDDCXXI", which is not a valid numeral at all and reads as 1721, although the book was actually published in January 1722. A title page dated plainly MDCCXXII (1722) is…. London 1722 is the true first; no UK/US or original-language precedence question arises, as Defoe is an English author printed in London and American editions are much later. The census's publisher attribution "W. Chetwood and T. Edling" is correct but abbreviated: the imprint names both booksellers with their shop signs and streets, and it is the full imprint together with the garbled date that identifies the…. Book-club editions are not applicable to a 1722 octavo. The real later-issue tells are the second and third editions of 1722, which state their edition on the title page and are correctly dated MDCCXXII; both are commonly mistaken for, or optimistically described as, the first. Moll Flanders has been continuously reprinted since: any copy in publisher's cloth, with an ISBN, or with an editor's introduction….
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