The Borrowers

UK true first confirmed: J. M. Dent & Sons, London, 1952 — the census claim stands, and it won the 1952 Carnegie Medal. The first American edition (Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1953) is separately collected and is a physically different book rather than a reprint of the Dent sheets: it substitutes new illustrations by Beth and Joe Krush (3 double-page, 10 full-page, and numerous smaller drawings), collates [viii]+180 pp., and is bound in light blue cloth pictorially stamped in black. London 1952 has precedence; the Krush-illustrated Harcourt is the edition most American readers know and is the one usually mis-sold as 'the first'.