RITUAL IN THE DARK. Signed.
London: Victor Gollancz, 1960.
1st Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Author. The Victor Gollancz Copy Inscribed By John Braine. 8vo., 416pp. Original cloth, black lettering. Dustwrapper. First edition. Very top of spine slightly faded. Fore-edges slightly browned. Wrapper lightly browned, creased, chipped at head & heel & with short tears. A very good plus copy in a very good dustwrapper. Inscribed on the fixed front endpaper, both sides of the free endpaper & on the half title by the author John Braine to Victor Gollancz: 'Miss Hewitt - Dear V. G., After this, please don't send me any more books for at least a year; I'm not working for you. Ritual in the Dark has, despite all the advice I gave to Colin, at least 1000 ineptitudes; and, despite all these ineptitudes, is still supremely readable. It renews my youth , and makes me remember the London I once knew - the La Vie Boheme London, the (illegible word) alive London of both 1945 and 1951. It's a very bad novel; but I could read it. And if you don't think this high praise then you know nothing at all abou t me - which indeed you don't, - sentimental old bourgeois that you are - or about any kind of mature writing! John Braine.' An important presentation inscription, John Braine being one of the people Colin Wilson acknowledges along with Victor Gollancz himself on the dedication leaf.
Item #21220 Price: US$3,850.00