The Witch in the Wood

US-first oddity CONFIRMED — the census claim is correct. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1939 precedes the first British edition (Collins, London, 1940, 281 pages) by one full calendar year, reversing the usual pattern for White, whose The Sword in the Stone had gone Collins-first in 1938. Multiple independent ABAA-grade dealers state the precedence explicitly ('This American edition is the true First Edition, published the year before the British edition'; 'first American edition, first printing, preceding the first British edition by one calendar year'). Both are collected: Putnam 1939 is the true first, Collins 1940 the first British. The sequence trap matters more than usual here — White was dissatisfied with the book and cut it heavily, trimming nearly a hundred pages and retitling it 'The Queen of Air and Darkness' for The Once and Future King (Collins, 1958). The 1939 Putnam and 1940 Collins are the only editions of the original, longer, more farcical text.