Inside Mr Enderby.

£500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

publisher's blank dummy A literary oddity if ever there was one. Inside Mr Enderby is one of two books published under the pseudonym Joseph Kell, on account of the fact that Burgess had written so many novels in a condensed period following a terminal cancer diagnosis (which turned out to not exist) that the publisher asked him to create a separate pseudonym lest readers questioned the quality of so great an output. To make matters more peculiar, this copy is entirely blank, it being merely a dummy, but even so, it was sent out for review to the author Julian Mitchell. Though, tragically, his review of this blank work was never written. Publisher's blank dummy, review copy; 8vo; Julian Mitchell's ownership signature to front free endpaper, review slip pasted to first blank, else unmarked internally; publisher's maroon boards, with the unclipped pictorial dust-jacket by Derrick Holmes, short closed tear to top edge of front panel, spine and extremities tanned, else very good.

• Binding: Hardcover

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