DURRELL, Lawrence The Black Book. Paris: The Olympia Press.1959.
Small format 8vo., original green card covers, ruled and lettered in black and white; together in the pictorial card dustwrapper printed in black, white, red and purple; pp. [vi], 7-301, [iii]; title page with border in green; slight rubbing to edges and creasing along spine; a little browned to outer edges of text block; the wrapper scuffed at edges, particularly head and foot of spine, with one short closed tear; very good.
Second edition, revised. The first issue of this version, with the green border to the title page. No. 77 in the Traveller’s Companion Series, printed in Jul 1959 by Impr. S.I.P., Montreuil and priced 1.500 Francs. The book first appeared in 1938, when it was published
by Jack Kahane of the Obelisk Press.
The Black Book was Durrell’s controversial third novel, and follows a group of struggling writers and artists, and the debaucherous activities they get up to in a London hotel. It was banned in Britain for four decades after its initial publication.
“The first piece of work by a new English writer to give me any hope for the future of prose fiction.” - T. S. Eliot
Kearney (p. 90)
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