The Very Model of a Man.

first edition inscribed by the author

This first edition is inscribed by the author, 'To Clive, Who'll recognise its protagonist. Best wishes, Howard'. Clive is most likely Clive James FRSL (1939-2019), a literary critic, journalist, broadcaster, and friend of Howard Jacobson. The week after James' death, Johnson published a deeply felt tribute to his late friend's personality and work, including the anecdote, 'Many years ago, at a dinner table, he told the woman sitting opposite him that he wanted to bite her. The woman was my wife'. Johnson discusses, too, how James' Catholicism informed his instincts and writing, which is perhaps what this inscription references.

A Very Model of a Man is 'a divine comedy of the darkest shade', a biblical retelling à la Paradise Lost, the story of the fall of man from Caine's point of view. Jacobson, a self-described 'Jewish Jane Austen', uses these pages to meditate on Judaism and tradition.

First edition, inscribed by the author in pen to title-page; 8vo; publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver, a very good copy with dust-jacket, lightly bumped at edges; [x], 342pp.