The Author's Debut Novel.

AMIS, Martin ~ The Rachel Papers.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Jonathan Cape, London: 1973.

8vo., black publisher's boards lettered vertically in gilt to spine with publisher's device to foot; upper edge stained red; in the vibrant black, red and yellow dustwrapper (unclipped, £2.25 net) designed by Keith Davis; THE BOOK fine, with small French bookseller's sticker to the front paste-down; THE WRAPPER very good plus, retaining, unusually, all of its original colour, just some faint spotting, nicking and chipping to the upper edge, particularly to head of spine and folds. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition, first printing of the author's debut novel. Described by his school teachers as "unusually unpromising", Amis did not show much interest in books and reading as a child. As an adolescent he was introduced to the works of Jane Austen by his stepmother, Elizabeth Jane Howard, and he later cited Austen as one of his earliest influences. After graduating with a degree in English from Cambridge, Amis began writing criticism in various newspaper and magazine columns including the TLS and the Observer, before publishing this, his first attempt at fiction, in 1973. In it, the protagonist Charles Highway attempts to woo Rachel through a combination of wit and wisdom. In many ways autobiographical, Highway is an arrogant, ambitious young man in the later years of adolescence, whose obsessions with attaining Rachel's favour lead him to abandon his college exams in order to win her praise. The resulting work is a parody of writers and writing, which received mixed reviews, but which nonetheless won the Somerset Maugham award the following year for best novel by a writer under the age of thirty-five. Later reflecting on his debut, Amis wrote that "A first novel is about energy and originality, but to me now it looks so crude...it's so clumsily put together. The sense of decorum, the slowing a sentence down, the scrupulousness I feel I have acquired, aren't there." Martin's father, Kingsley Amis, was famously critical of his son's work, once claiming that he was "Breaking the rules, buggering about with the reader [and] drawing attention to himself." Martin, however, achieved just as much fame during his writing life, and cited his father as one of his influences. He was listed for the Booker Prize twice, and was named by The Times as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Scarce in this condition. The wrapper, notoriously prone to fading along the backstrip, here remains bright with all of its original colour.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Fine
JACKET: Very Good +