Burnt Offerings

The true first is the US edition: Delacorte Press, New York, 1973 — the census claim is confirmed. A UK edition followed from Hodder & Stoughton, London, catalogued as 1973, with a Coronet paperback in 1974; because the Hodder issue may fall in the same year, the US Delacorte issue is the one conventionally treated as the true first and is the edition collected as such, but the exact UK release date is not firmly pinned by the sources consulted. Later Dell printings — including the 1976 film tie-in for the Karen Black / Oliver Reed adaptation — and the Valancourt reissue are "first thus" traps, not firsts.