The Life of Samuel Johnson

The census claim is CORRECT: the London 1791 two-volume quarto (Baldwin for Dilly) is the true first and the collected form, and the first American edition is Boston, 1807 (W. Andrews and L. Blake), in three octavo volumes — but the census undersells why the American is not a rival. The 1807 Boston edition was set from the FIFTH London edition, as revised and edited by Edmund Malone; it is a reprint of a later revised text, not an independent first, and it is the first edition of the work to carry an index. Since Boswell wrote in English and published in London, no UK/US or original-language precedence contest exists — London 1791 is first, full stop. One "first thus" trap worth naming: The Principal Corrections and Additions to the First Edition of Mr. Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson (Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly, 1793) is a separate and exceptionally rare companion pamphlet, frequently bound in with the 1791 quartos; its presence is desirable but it is NOT part of the first edition, and a set is not "more first" for having it.