Ask the Dust

US Stackpole Sons (New York, 1939) is the true first and the only edition with first-edition standing; the census claim on this point is confirmed. The census further stated 'no UK edition until decades later' — NOT VERIFIED: no British edition, and no date for one, was documented in the sources consulted, so this should be presented as 'no contemporaneous British edition identified' rather than as a positive fact. The 1980 Black Sparrow Press reissue (Santa Barbara), with the Charles Bukowski preface, is the edition that returned the book to print and is 'first thus' only — it is frequently mis-offered as a first and is the single most common trap on this title.