Abstract: (Marin Preda and His Deliriums (I)) In January 1975, Marin Preda published the novel Delirul (The Delirium), set in 1940-1941, a period of acute political and social crisis in Romania, culminating in the conflict between the General Ion Antonescu and Iron Guard movement, together with the legionnaireʼs rebellion from January 1941. Preda dared to approach the subject by deviating from the official historical narrative and, seemingly, partially rehabilitated Antonescu. The novel was a huge success, but sparked a diplomatic and cultural scandal abroad. Six months later, the novelist released a revised edition of the book, in which he made some necessary ideological concessions during another period of crisis, when the already limited cultural autonomy in socialist Romania was once again being curtailed. Delirul case exemplarily illustrates an effect of the ante imprimatur censorship in the communist regime: the difficulty of fully recovering works that passed through the grinder of censorship. The present study shows that the editions of Delirul published before 1989 (essentially, the two editions issued one after the other in 1975) represent not only different versions, but also different interpretations of the relationship between creative freedom and ideological compromise imposed on the Romanian writer under communism – even if the writer was Marin Preda. This reality would influence not only the novel’s reception in the communist period, but also its post-communist reprints (which will be the subject of a later study). curtailed.