Uncorrected Proof Copy of Anthony Burgess's scarcest novel which was suppressed immediately upon release due to a successful libel action.
Publisher's blue wraps with black titles on front panel and spine.
273pp.
Binding sound. Chip at base of spine. Contents clean.
Due to the author's thinly-veiled references to his colleagues, to which one of them took offence, specifically Gwendoline Bustin, the secretary of Banbury Grammar School where Burgess taught in the early fifties, the publisher was instructed by the courts to revise the text or face legal action. Heinemann decided to withdraw the book and have all copies pulped. A revised edition did however appear in 1970, but no other editions were ever published. So the only way one can read this novel today in its original, unadulterated version, is in the first edition, which is described online as "ultra rare", or in its earliest published version, which is this uncorrected proof copy of which only a handful have ever appeared for sale.
Burgess's great work, A Clockwork Orange, was published the following year.
- Binding Condition: Good
- Overall Condition: Good
