Very rare uncorrected proof copy of the first edition of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart on auction – Possibly a unique survival

Chinua Achebe is considered one of the founders of new Nigerian literature, as well as one of the finest African novelists and most prominent African writers of his generation. Born in Nigeria in 1930, Chinua Achebe attended the University of Ibadan. In 1958, his groundbreaking novel Things Fall Apart was published. It went on to sell more than 12 million copies and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Achebe later served as the David and Marianna Fisher University professor and professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He died on March 21, 2013, at age 82, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Things Fall Apart, a landmark novel, is arguably the most important work of fiction to come out of Africa. The book is the most widely-read African novel of the twentieth century and a milestone in post-colonial literature.
It was first published in 1958 by William Heinemann Ltd in the UK. 

Achebe's fiction and criticism inspired and influenced writers around the world, such as Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning novelist and a whole new generation of African writers. Caine prize winners Binyavanga Wainaina and Helon see Chinua Achebe’s work to have had significant influence on their own work. 

A very rare, uncorrected proof copy of the 1^st edition is available on Auction#41. The proof alone is rare but the dealer selling the book can find no record of the dustwrapper on this copy ever having surfaced before. Possibly a unique survival.     

¹ From: http://www.biography.com/people/chinua-achebe-20617665