The Sheltering Sky

TRUE FIRST IS UK — confirmed. Doubleday declined the manuscript as insufficiently novelistic, and John Lehmann Ltd (London) published it first, in September 1949; New Directions (New York) followed later the same year. The census claim of 'December 1949' for New Directions is CORRECTED: sources consulted report the American edition appearing in October 1949, though the exact month is not confirmed to two independent bibliographic authorities and should be treated as approximate. Both editions are collected: the Lehmann as the true first, the New Directions as the first American edition (and the more familiar book, on the strength of the Lustig jacket).