Doubtfire by Nye Robert (11 results)

Cloth. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. First UK edition. In dust jacket with rubbing/discoloration and mild edgewear. NOT price clipped, original price on flap. Sticker residue on front free end page upper right corner. Clean & sound. Splotches of brown/foxing back cover. Umber cloth with gold lettering.

hardcover. Condition: Very Good in Dustjacket. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. London. 1967. Calder & Boyars. 1st British Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 208 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Guy Nicholls. keywords: Europe England Literature World Literature. DESCRIPTION - DOUBTFIRE, Robert Nye's 1st novel published when the author was 28, is the work of a real writer, a craftsman who knows how to use language with tremendous impact and poetic force. For anyone seriously involved with the development of writing, the passages which hold up a mirror to the process of creating poetry will be unique; but the book is equally rich in the evocation of 'ordinary' experience, recreating - vividly, burningly, with a painfully tangible exactness - the sights and sounds of adolescence, in a seaside town. Like many highly contemporary works, DOUBTFIRE is not a novel in the traditional sense. It does not attempt to tell a story, but expresses in art a moment of the packed richness and agonising strangeness of living itself. It chronicles the thoughts and feelings, the inner and outer experience of one William Retz who, in the course of the book, discovers the self and the world, his self and his world, a subjective reality of which the reader becomes a part and which thus becomes objective. He perceives others in terms of stylised personages, the Woman (Joan Dark), the enemy (Ben Flamel), the psychiatrist (Doctor Sphinx), his father (Og), his mother (Lil), symbols of real people for whom he waits at street corners, with whom he has imaginary telephone conversations, to whom he travels in his mind, through whom he lives, loves, quarrels in an immense struggle to come to his own being. William Retz emerges out of this defeated in the act of suicide - he goes on living because he begins to understand the complexities of the fusion of real and imaginary life, the natural schizophrenia to which we are all prone. Despite the difficult theme of the book, DOUBTFIRE is not self-consciously ambitious. Robert Nye talks aloud about states of mind and feeling which he records truthfully by means of highly- readable and often hilarious episodes, giving instant insight into the very stuff of life, happiness and profound grief, hopes and unbearable disappointments, the perception of beauty and the inevitability of continued existence. Essentially, this is a book about adolescence, about the process of growing up. inventory #22215.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition, First Impression. 1967 first edition, first impression. Signed by Author. Size octavo, 208 pages. Dark brown hard cover with gilt titles to the spine, with the dust jacket. Book condition near fine, a very clean copy. Dust jacket condition very good, corners folds and spine ends rubbed, creasing and one tiny tear to top edge of spine, slight rubbing to panels, not price clipped. Inscribed by Robert Nye to the front end-paper; "for John this other failure to find an objective correlative with love from Robert 12th August, 1968" From the collection of Jonathan Gili (1943-2004), film-maker, director and collector of many things including books. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Signed by Author(s).

hardcover. Condition: Very Good in Dustjacket. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. New York. 1968. Hill & Wang. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 208 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Lo Monaco/Burrell Design. keywords: Europe England Literature World Literature. DESCRIPTION - Like many contemporary works of fiction, DOUBTFIRE is not a novel in the traditional sense. It does not attempt to tell a story, does not develop a plot, but instead concentrates on a moment in the agonizing strangeness of living itself - which is doubtridden, griefstricken, happy, hopeful, disappointing, absurd, comic, and chaotic. The main character is an adolescent - for essentially this is a book about growing up - named William Retz, who passes from ignorance and doubt to a discovery of his self and his world. There is a rich evocation in the book of everyday life in an English seaside town. For anyone who writes or attempts to write, the passages about creating poetry will hold a special and surprising element of recognition. This first novel by Robert Nye is quite clearly the work of an original literary artist who uses language with subtlety, versatility, and poetic force. 'It is too much, we say: too much poetry, too much impossible prose, too much Beckett; Mr. Nye, as the saying goes, is too much. But after that first arrest DOUBTFIRE will be discovered to generate its own conventions, its own forms of solace, and we remember that any fiction is a matter of the more than merely life-size, is a monstrous measurement, the calipers taking hold of the object from the space, the dimensions around it. If we are patient with ourselves and allow this author his fine impatience, we shall see not with but through his eyes, as Blake said we should. And as for being too much - did not Blake also say that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom?' - RICHARD HOWARD inventory #5887.

Cloth. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First US Edition; First Printing. A Fine first printing of the first American edition housed in a scuffed dust-jacket in otherwise Nearly Fine condition; Doubtfire is a novel about a man who has to pretend to be his own father for a week.; 8vo; 208 pages.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good-. First Edition. INSCRIBED by author on front free endpaper, "Inscribed for my friend by correspondence Rolland L. Comstock with best wishes from Robert Nye Sept. 1991." Stated First American Edition. "This first novel by Robert Nye is quite clearly the work of an original literary artist who uses language with subtlety, versatility, and poetic force." Ships same or next business day. Remainder mark on head edge. Spine is slightly skewed and loose. Small bumps on corners and spine ends. Light tanning and foxing to edges of pages. Otherwise, free from major defect. Dust jacket protected in archival cover. DJ has edge and shelf wear. 1-inch tears on spine tail and top right corner of front cover. Small tears and creases on corners and spine ends. Light wearing and fading to spine. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 208 pages; Signed by Author.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First Edition (first printing) of the author's first novel for adults. 8vo. 208pp. Brown boards lettered in gold at the spine. Just a touch of bruising to the spine ends and a little spotting to the margins of the free endpapers. Very good indeed in slightly chafed, spotted and dust soiled non-price-clipped dust wrapper.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First edition. Pages foxed, brown cloth a bit faded, still a very good copy in a very good modestly worn dustwrapper. This is the poet's first adult novel.

First Edition. Author's first novel for adults. VG in VG- slightly rubbed and edgeworn dustjacket.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. 1st Edition. 208pp. VG/G. 1st edition. Brown cloth covered boards with bright gilt lettering on spine. Tightly bound. Paper age toning to page edges. Slight crease to tip of tail of spine. Finger marks to ffep edge. Inscription on ffep SIGNED by the author "for Olwyn with love and gratitude from Robert, 1968". This book belonged to Olwyn Hughes (1928-2016), sister and literary agent of poet laureate Ted Hughes. Pencil inscription in OH's hand on rfep. Unclipped black dust jacket in good condition (only). White and lemon lettering. B/w portrait photograph of author on rear panel. Shelf wear all round. Tiny tear to top of spine of dj. Toning to inside edges of the dust jacket. Now protected in archival wraps. Signed by Author(s).

First Edition. Fine copy in somewhat worn and rubbed dust-wrapper.