Night's Black Agents

Arkham House (Sauk City), 1947, is the true first, and the census is right that this is Leiber's debut collection containing "Smoke Ghost." The census note naming Kaye & Ward as the British publisher is wrong and is corrected here: the first British hardcover is Neville Spearman (Jersey), 1975, ISBN 0-85978-013-9, octavo in boards with jacket art by David L. Fletcher, its text offset from the 1947 Arkham setting. The Spearman is collectable as the UK first but is not a rival to the Arkham book, which precedes it by twenty-eight years.