Sister Carrie

CENSUS CLAIM CONFIRMED, with one caution on framing. US Doubleday, Page (New York, 1900) is the true first. The first British edition is William Heinemann, London, 1901, issued as the sixth volume in Heinemann's short-lived 'The Dollar Library: A Monthly Series of American Fiction' — and it is an ABRIDGED text: Heinemann required the first 200 pages be condensed to roughly 80 to fit the series, and about 73 of the first 196 pages of the Doubleday, Page text were cut, work Dreiser did with Arthur Henry. Both editions are collected; the Heinemann is scarce (roughly 1,500-2,500 copies) but is textually a different, shortened book and is never the true first. CAUTION: the familiar 'Doubleday suppressed it' story is contested by scholars — the documented facts are that Doubleday printed 1,008 copies and declined to promote the book; state it that way rather than as active suppression.