The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time [Signed]

Mark Haddon

ISBN 10: 0385605870 / ISBN 13: 9780385605878

Published by David Fickling Books, Oxford, 2003

About this Item

Oxford: David Fickling Books, 2003. First Children's Edition, with full numberline. Octavo (22.5cm); [viii],[272]pp. Illustrated dust jacket with £10.99 price intact; boards in red cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Jacket is lightly rubbed along edges with light spotting to flaps where prior owner's makeshift covering adhered a bit. Boards are clean and sharp. Spine faintly cocked. Binding is sound and pages unmarked. Signed by the author without inscription and dated "Cape 1 May 2003" on full title. An Adult Edition, differing only in binding and dust jacket, was published simultaneously by Jonathan Cape the same year. Seller Inventory # 30310

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the ...

Publisher: David Fickling Books, Oxford

Publication Date: 2003

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. He has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science and Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people. When he discovers a dead dog on a neighbour's lawn he decides to solve the mystery and write a detective thriller about it. As in all good detective stories, however, the more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets - for both Christopher and the rest of his family.

Review:

Mark Haddon's bitterly funny debut novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is a murder mystery of sorts--one told by an autistic version of Adrian Mole. Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone is mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home by parents who can barely cope with their child's quirks. He takes everything that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange behavior of his elders and peers.

Late one night, Christopher comes across his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork. Wellington's owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher resolves--against the objection of his father and neighbors--to discover just who has murdered Wellington. He is encouraged by Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations, and the result--quirkily illustrated, with each chapter given its own prime number--is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Haddon's novel is a startling performance. This is the sort of book that could turn condescending, or exploitative, or overly sentimental, or grossly tasteless very easily, but Haddon navigates those dangers with a sureness of touch that is extremely rare among first-time novelists. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is original, clever, and genuinely moving: this one is a must-read. --Jack Illingworth, Amazon.ca