The Well at the World's End

CENSUS CLAIM CORRECTED. The claim that the Kelmscott limited simply 'precedes' the Longmans, Green trade edition is only half right, and is backwards on printing. Peterson A39 (William S. Peterson, A Bibliography of the Kelmscott Press, Clarendon Press, 1984) records that the Kelmscott text was set FROM the sheets of the Longmans edition then being printed at the Chiswick Press; those Chiswick/Longmans sheets were finished in 1894 and deliberately held back so that the Kelmscott edition might be the first to appear. The Kelmscott therefore holds publication priority (issued 4 June 1896) while the Longmans trade edition holds printing priority (completed 1894, published October 1896), and dealers citing Peterson state that bibliographers consider the Longmans printing the true first edition. Both are collected; describe both, and state which kind of priority is meant rather than asserting a bare 'first'.