J. P. The Ginger Man.

by DONLEAVY

£800 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

DONLEAVY, J. P. The Ginger Man. Paris: The Olympia Press. 1955. Small format 8vo. Original green card covers, ruled and lettered in black and white; pp. [vi], 7-353, [vii]; a near-fine copy, lightly rubbed at edges and creased at lower corner; a little creased along spine with small red mark to foot; a couple of light splash marks to the upper edge; priced 18- to inside rear cover. First edition. No. 7 in the Traveller’s Companion Series. Printed June 1955 by Impr. S.I.P., Montreuil, and priced 1.500 to the lower cover. J. P. Donleavy was born in Brooklyn in 1926. The son of Irish immigrants, he moved to Ireland after the end of the First World War, where he studied bacteriology at Trinity College, Dublin. There, he began to write the manuscript for his first novel The Ginger Man, with the protagonist based in part on his friend and colleague Gainor Crist, an American Navy veteran also studying at Trinity and whom the author had once described in an interview as a "saint". Donleavy showed the book to his good friend Brendan Behan for his thoughts, and it was Behan’s idea to approach the Olympia Press for publication after the manuscript was rejected by as many as 30 publishers. The book appeared in this format in 1955, and was immediately banned in both Ireland and the U.S. on grounds of obscenity. Upon discovering that the book had been published under their pornography imprint The Traveller’s Companion Series, Donleavy was furious. "I smashed my fist upon its green cover fo

• Binding: Hardcover

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