Night (Un di Velt Hot Geshvign / La Nuit)

Original-language precedence sits with the Yiddish 1956 Buenos Aires edition; the census claim is correct. Three distinct editions are separately collected and all should be named. (1) The Yiddish first, above. (2) The French: La Nuit, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1958, 178 pp., with the preface by François Mauriac and the dedication to Chlomo, Sarah and Tzipora — this is a heavily cut and reworked text rather than a straight translation of the Yiddish, and it is the text from which the English descends. Jérôme Lindon accepted the book in 1957 and the title was settled in May 1958; copies dated 1957 do not exist. (3) The first English, translated from the French by Stella Rodway, published in 1960 in two editions: London: MacGibbon & Kee, whose copyright page states "First Published by MacGibbon & Kee 1960" (jacket designed by Cowan); and New York: Hill and Wang, whose copyright page states "First American Edition September 1960," in publisher's black cloth lettered in silver, approximately 116 pp., in a first-issue priced jacket (price present at the flap) with a photograph of Wiesel in glasses at the rear flap. Hill & Wang's own "First American Edition" wording implies a prior English-language edition and the London issue is generally treated as the first in English, but I could not establish month-level precedence between London and New York against two independent authorities — so both are described here and neither is ranked.