Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave

The census claim is confirmed: London 1688, printed for William Canning, is the true first, and there is no rival UK/US or original-language edition — Behn wrote in English and no earlier printing exists. The nearest precedence trap is a same-year issue: later in 1688 Canning issued Oroonoko together with "The Fair Jilt" and "Agnes de Castro" as "Three Histories" (Wing B1766A) under a general title, and copies of the separate are commonly found bound with those companion pieces; because a copy lacking the general title can be presented either way, the presence or absence of that general title must be reported rather than assumed. A new edition of the novel followed Thomas Southerne's stage adaptation (staged 1695, printed 1696), after which the novel was never out of print in the eighteenth century — Southerne's play is a separate work and is not an edition of Behn's novel.