All Quiet on the Western Front

The census claim is confirmed. The German Propyläen edition (Berlin, January 1929) is the true first. In English, the Putnam London edition of March 1929 is the first English-language edition and precedes the far more common Little, Brown Boston edition of June 1929 by about three months; both are collected, but the London edition holds priority and carries the unexpurgated Wheen text. The American text is a distinct, censored state: Little, Brown cut it to satisfy obscenity law and to secure a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, removing among other things the extended latrine scene and a three-page hospital episode along with numerous smaller omissions touching sex and bodily functions. Collectors wanting Wheen's text as he made it need the London printing, not the Boston one.