Osborne's highly autobiographical play concerns a love triangle involving an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin (Jimmy Porter), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife (Alison), and her haughty best friend (Helena Charles). The play was such a success that it spawned the term 'angry young men' to describe Osborne and those of his generation who employed the harshness of realism in the theatre in contrast to the more escapist theatre that characterised the previous generation.

First edition, first impression; 8vo; light toning and offsetting to endpapers, else unmarked internally; publisher's brown cloth, gilt lettering to spine, with the unclipped photographic dust-jacket, a little chipped along the edges, short closed tear to top edge of rear panel, light toning to spine panel, else very good.