The White Dragon

US Del Rey/Ballantine first of June 1978 is the true first of the complete novel, confirming the census claim. The claim that this is the first Pern hardcover original also holds up, but only on the specific sense of "hardcover original": Dragonflight (Ballantine, 1968) and Dragonquest (Ballantine, 1971) were both paperback originals whose hardcovers came later and from other houses (Dragonflight in the UK from Rapp & Whiting, 1968, and in the US from Walker & Company, 1969; Dragonquest in the UK from Rapp & Whiting/André Deutsch, 1973), so The White Dragon is the first Pern novel issued first in hardcover. Watch one first-appearance trap: the NESFA Press limited edition A Time When (1975) prints the opening section that became part of the novel, so it — not the Del Rey book — is the first appearance of that portion of the text.