The Black Book.

A very good example of the true first edition of The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell, published as the first volume in The Villa Seurat Series created by Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin and Durrell as an adjunct to the Obelisk Press. Faber & Faber had initially offered to publish the work in expurgated form, but Durrell declined this option on the advise of Miller; the work was not published in the UK until 1973.

'This is a wild, passionate, brilliantly gaudy and flamboyant extravaganza; it is intrinsically and essentially, the book of a young man – Durrell was 24 when he wrote it – richly obscene, energetically morbid, very often very funny indeed, self-pitying, but, above all, stylistically and verbally inventive as no other young man's novel of the period was even attempting to be.' (The Observer)

First edition; large 8vo (215 x 150 mm.); some toning to margins as usual, small closed tear and ink stamp to final blank leaf; publisher's printed wrappers, 2 minor tape reinforcements to inside of each wrapper with small closed tear to top edge of lower wrapper, but overall very good.

Thomas & Bingham A8