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Duh! Silly of me not to check previously, but in Allan Brown's Inside the Wicker Man he notes:
"A novel entitled The Wicker Man was published in hardback in 1978 by Crown in the USA and Hamlyn in the United Kingdom."
So, this raises the question of which came first in 1978? At the moment I've no idea. In any event, as previously noted, the Crown hardcover of 1978 is at least the first US printing. I tend to think that the UK edition likely precedes it as UK based authors are usually (and this is a very uneven and exception riddled rule of thumb) published first in their home country, with separate rights being issued for foreign publishing later, either by a subsidiary of the UK publisher or by an entirely different entity. Typically British author's books tend to be released in the US anywhere from 3 to 9 months after the UK edition (again this is not always true but a fairly typical occurence) so some further research is in order. Where exactly, I've no idea, although if you are really keen, I'd suggest contacting some hardcore Wicker fans or specialty book dealers as they are more likely to have such specialized info to hand.
If I find anything out I'll certainly post it here.
Cheers!
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