Published by Grove Press, New York, 1970
Seller: Letters Bookshop, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada
First Edition Signed
Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. 416pp; cloth-backed boards, price-clipped jacket; 233 x 159 x 33 mm. Canadian issue of the author's first book in English (originally 1958), with Canadian price stamped on ffe, $8.75. Translated by Jeanne Nemcova. Four-line inscription on tp in Czech, beginning "Sally a Gordon" & signed "Josef Skvorecky 27.5.71 Toronto"; with the recipient's ink name at crown of ffe: "H. Gordon Skilling Toronto / March, 1971". Canadian Czech scholar & political scientist, Harold Gordon Skilling (who with his wife the sociologist Sally Bright, became close friends of the author in Toronto) was ultimately decorated in 1992 by President Vaclav Havel with the highest Czech honour, the Order of the White Lion. A nice copy with offset patch on ffe from laid-in clipping (absent); in a bright intact jacket worn very lightly only at crown of joints. Exceptional thus. Inscribed by Author(s).