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 format, published as it was in the pseudonymous and pornographic Traveller's Companion
Series, and I declared aloud, 'If it's the last thing I ever do, I will avenge this book'" Donleavy wrote in his 1994 autobiography. A series of legal battles followed, with each party suing the other. The arguments came to a head over twenty years later when the owner of the press
Maurice Girodias declared himself bankrupt, and sold the name of his company. When he later attempted to purchase back the title of his beloved Olympia Press at an auction in Paris, Donleavy learned of the sale, and sent his wife to France under the guise of a company named ‘The Little Someone Corporation’. Bidding was fierce, and when the total tipped $8,000 dollars, Girodias ran out of money. “The mysterious woman (as Girodias saw her) made a final bid, and the Olympia Press belonged to Donleavy." (James Campbell in The Guardian).
Donleavy is often described as one of the foremost figures in the "Angry Young Men" movement, which was characterised by a frustration with social injustice and class discrimination in post-war society. His 1973 novel A Fairy Tale of New York later inspired the famous Christmas song by the same name, adapted by Pogues.
Kearney, p. 66.
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