A Clockwork Orange.
$14,000 · Offered by Biblio
First edition · Signed
London: Heinemann, 1962. First edition of Burgess' landmark novel. Octavo, original black boards, titles to spine in gilt. Boldly signed by Anthony Burgess on the second free endpaper. Near fine in a near fine first issue dust jacket with the wide flaps with a touch of shelfwear. Jacket design by Barry Trengrove. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. A very nice example. A Clockwork Orange is a nightmare vision of the future told in its own fantastically inventive lexicon, it has since become a classic of modern literature. Roald Dahl hailed it “A terrifying and marvelous book.” Inspired in part by an attack on Burgess’ pregnant wife, Burgess’ most famous novel is a “compelling and often comic vision of the way violence comes to dominate the mind” (Clute Nicholls, 175). “The most discussed aspect of this book is the slang Burgess created for his teenaged characters. Called ‘nadsat,’ it combines Cockney slang with Russian… A Clockwork Orange serves as a forum for the discussion of the nature of language and the conflicts between free will and determinism” (New York Public Library, Books of the Century, 164). The cinematic adaptation of Burgess’s haunting tale was accidental. Screenplay writer Terry Southern gave Stanley Kubrick a copy of the novel, but, as he was developing a Napoleon Bonaparte–related project, Kubrick put it aside. Soon afterward, however, the Bonaparte project was canceled and, sometime later, Kubrick happened upon the novel. It had an immediate imp
- Publisher: Heinemann
- Year: 1962
- Edition: First Edition
- Binding: hardcover
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