A HUMUMENT. A Treated Victorian Novel.

First revised edition. Signed by the author. Publisher's original green cloth with silver titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. Illustrated in colour throughout. A near fine copy, the binding square and tight, the cloth bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout and without previous owner's inscriptions or stamps, the closed text block edge is a little spotted. Complete with the lightly rubbed dustwrapper that is without fading, loss or tears.

Signed by Tom Phillips in black ink on the title page. In 1966, Tom Phillips embarked on a pivotal project with a simple premise: to find a second-hand book for threepence. After this acquisition, he planned to alter every page with painting, collage, and cut-up techniques, in order to create an entirely new version of the book. For these purposes, he obtained a copy of W. H. Mallock's forgotten Victorian romance 'A Human Document', from a junkshop on Peckham Rye, South London, and retitled his altered book A Humument. Some of Mallock's original text remains intact and through the illustrated pages the character of Bill Toge, Phillips's anti-hero, and his romantic plight emerges. The first printing of this extraordinary work was privately published by Ian Tyson's Tetrad Press in a series of boxed pages between 1971–1976. The present example is the first trade edition and first edition in book form. Now regarded as a seminal classic of postmodern art, and one of the most important artists' books of the twentieth century.