The Secret Agent

Methuen, London, September 1907 is the accepted true first and the census claim stands, but the margin is narrower than the claim implies: the first American edition — Harper & Brothers, New York (Cagle A12b, binding a; Smith 13; Keating 75; Conolly 100 15b), 4,000 copies in blue pictorial cloth — also appeared in September 1907, and the sources consulted do not fix an exact day for either. Methuen's priority rests on the conventional attribution and on Cagle's finding that Harper set its text from uncorrected proofs supplied by Methuen, recording more than one hundred variants between the two of the kind easily corrected in proof. Both editions are collected; treat the Methuen as the first and the Harper as the first American.