With unique signed doodled notecard.

MARTEL, Yann ~ Life of Pi. Signed by the author.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Canongate, Edinburgh, 2002.

8vo., dark blue boards, lettered in silver to spine with publisher's device to foot; in the beautifully-illustrated pictorial dustwrapper, with a cover painting by Andy Bridge, and designed by James Hutchinson; decorative endpapers; THE BOOK a little bumped at spine tips, else fine; THE WRAPPER perhaps a touch creased, but also fine. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition, first printing, with full number line 1-10. This copy neatly signed by the author to the title page, with a hand-signed and doodled notecard on the author's personalised stationery loosely tipped in. Alongside a crudely-drawn image of an island, a boat, and the boy with a tiger inside, the text reads: "A boy / A tiger / A Lifeboat / The Pacific Ocean / May you reach / The Coast of Mexico". The much-loved tale of a boy who survives a shipwreck with just a tiger for company, this the UK edition which appeared the year after it was published in the author's native Canada, with renewed artwork by Andy Bridge. Martel had traveled extensively in his childhood, as the son of parents who worked in the Canadian Foreign Service. He began writing at University, and published predominantly short stories until his first novel, 'Self', appeared in 1996, to mixed reviews. This, his second novel, was to change the course of his life. Despite being rejected by as many as five London publishers, it went on to sell over ten million copies, and won the Booker Prize the following year. Martel has described the work in three statements: the first "Life is a story"; the second "You can choose your story"; and the third "A story with God is the better story". Part adventure, part philosophical discourse on the nature of reality, and part a reflection of religious traditions, it remains a highly popular work, and was adapted into an academy award-winning film in 2012. A fabulous copy of this Booker Prize-winning novel.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Fine
JACKET: Fine