BALLARD, J.G. High Rise. London: Jonathan Cape. 1975.
8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to spine, top edge blue, in price-clipped dustwrapper; pp. 204; very minimal fading to lower margins of boards with slight marking to rear wrapper, otherwise a bright, near-fine copy.
First edition.
“Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months…”
One of Ballard’s most provocative and enduring works, High-Rise transforms the modern tower block into a microcosm of social collapse. Beneath the veneer of affluence and technological sophistication, order gives way to violence, rivalry, and primal instinct as the tenants descend into an orgy of destruction over the course of three months. Published at a moment when Britain was grappling with post-war redevelopment and the promise, and threat, of technological modernity, High-Rise remains a prescient meditation on urban disillusionment and a cornerstone of late twentieth-century dystopian literature.
SKU: 2121520