PERFUME: The Story of a Murderer (First UK edition - first impression - near fine copy)

First impression of the first edition in English. Translated from the German by John E. Woods. Originally published in German as "Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Morders" by Diogenes Verlag AG in Zurich in 1985 ***Near fine in black cloth-covered boards with gilt titles to the spine. The gilt is still nice and bright. The boards are beautifully clean, with just a small scuff at the top of the front board. Tail of spine slightly creased. Corners sharp. No reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. The page block edges are tanned as usual but with no marks or foxing. Internally also near fine with no inscriptions or annotations. The endpapers are illustrated with maps of Paris. No creases or tears. Pages clean but paper stock tanned as usual (cheap paper stock used by the publisher). ***In a near fine colour-illustrated dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of £9.95 net. The dustwrapper is virtually flawless. No creases, chips or tears. Just some light fading to the titles on the spine which are yellow rather than the original bright red. Dustwrapper bright. ***240mm x158mm. 186 pages. ***'This is the story of one Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born under a fishmonger's bloody slab in eighteenth-century Paris. For his brutal birth signals the beginning of one of the strangest lives ever imagined, and a career of very violent genius. ***As a human being, Grenouille is handicapped from the start, and at the same time outstandingly gifted. His mother is executed for murder. Wet nurses refuse to nurse him. In the orphanage other boys shun him. But as he grows up in isolation two facts begin to dawn on him. One is that he is blessed with an extraordinarily sharp sense of smell. The other - the cause of his rejection - is that he has no smell of his own. Then a chance meeting with an ageing parfumier on the Pont au Change, during which he exactly replicates a perfume for the old man, sets Grenouille on the road to fame. And on the bloody part of murder. ***Part fable, part surreal fantasy, part novel of suspense, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is the work of a brilliant talent. The originality of the story, the dynamo of the writing, the supremely sensual grasp of one man's secret world, make it a novel worthy of comparison with the great European masters.' (Quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper). ***First impression of the first edition in English, complete in its original dustwrapper, in very nice bright collectable condition. The British edition is far less common than its American counterpart, and copies in this near fine condition are very uncommon. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.…