Lamming, George ~ In the Castle of My Skin

Michael Joseph, London : 1953

The First UK printing published by Michael Joseph, London in 1953. Original grey publisher's cloth, lettered typographically in white and gold to spine; in the unclipped pictorial wrapper (15s. net); with wrapper design, decorative purple endpapers, and frontis line drawing of the author all by West Indian Artist Denis Williams; The BOOK is in near Fine condition, mild bumping to the spine tips, with faint spotting to the outer edges of the text block; the Very Good++ WRAPPER with some even toning and spotting; creased along folds, with some nicking, chipping and short closed tears, more-so at the spine tips; one 1cm closed tear to the lower panel; repaired to the verso with tape. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. The first, and widely-acclaimed autobiographical novel by the Barbadian writer George Lamming, which follows the events in a young boy's life living and growing up in the 1930s in Carrington Village, Barbados. Born in 1927, Lamming was encouraged to write by his teacher Frank Collymore, and after teaching for a number of years in Port of Spain, Trinidad, he travelled to London, where this novel was first published. It was a journey, he believed, of necessity. "I had left home", he later wrote, "to make a career as a writer. This was a journey to an expectation, and between 1948 and 1960 every West Indian novelist of significance within their region made a similar journey". Championed by such writers as Jean-Paul Sartre, the novel later won the 'Somerset Maugham Award' in 1957, and follows the coming-of-age story of a young boy, G, as he navigates the process of growing up against a backdrop of huge societal change. The title is derived from Derek Walcott's 'Epitaph for the Young' (1949): "You in the castle of your skin / I the swineherd." The book was a huge success, and praised by 'The Spectator' as "A striking piece of work, a rich and memorable feat of imaginative interpretation". A sequel, 'The Emigrants', followed in 1954. This first edition is much enhanced by the striking wrapper and endpaper design by Denis Williams, a fellow West Indian artist born in Guyana, who studied at the Camberwell School of Art in London in 1946 and lived in London for over ten years, teaching at both Central School of Art and the Slade School of Art. The author's debut novel, very scarce in this condition.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good++