Northern Lights

US Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence (New York, August 1975) is the true first — the census claim holds. The first British edition followed from Calder & Boyars (London, 1976), carrying the 1975 copyright; the UK hardback issue is reported at roughly 900 copies and is uncommon in its own right, so both editions are collected — name both. The census description of this as O'Brien's first novel is correct but needs the standard qualifier: it is his first novel and his SECOND book, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973) preceding it. First-thus trap: the Broadway Books reissue of September 1999 (ISBN 9780767904414) is a later edition, not a first; frequently repeated reports that O'Brien revised or cut the text for that reissue could NOT be confirmed from the publisher's own description, so treat the 1975 Delacorte text as the first-edition text and verify any "revised text" claim independently before repeating it.