The present text derives from the original edition published simultaneously by Charles Scribner’s Sons of New York and The Macmillan Company of Canada in 1959. First submitted by MacLennan’s agent to Houghton, Miffin and Company, it was rejected but was then taken on enthusiastically by Scribner’s, whom MacLennan described as “much the best firm for fiction in the U.S.A.” The British edition was brought out by William Heinemann Ltd. in London and had two printings in 1959. There were paperback editions in the New American Library of Canada and Pan Books in 1961 and 1963. A paperback edition was publsihed in 1975 by The Macmillan Co. of Canada as number 32 in the Laurentian Library Series.
MacLennan had considered “Sunrise at Evening” and “Requiem” as possible titles before settling on “The Watch that Ends the Night.”
The cover of the Laurentian Library paperback edition (1975) with a partial sketch of a Quebec manoir in the background.