The World of Null-A

The Simon & Schuster 1948 US edition is the true first book edition worldwide and the census claim is correct. It was preceded only by the magazine serial in Astounding Science Fiction (August–October 1945), which the book text revises. There is no competing early UK edition: the first British hardcover is Dennis Dobson, London, 1969 — more than two decades later — so US precedence is not in dispute. First-thus trap: the 1970 Berkley Medallion text is a further authorial revision (new passages and a new van Vogt introduction) and is a distinct text state, not a first edition.