THE COMEDY OF THE WHITE DOG

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Original illustrated paper wrappers. A fine copy. The front panel, bearing an uncredited black-and-white photograph of a faceless doll clad in Victorian costume seated (backwards) on the back of a white china dog, is unmarked and uncreased. An immaculate copy of a very scarce book. Together with a very good copy of the journal, "Scottish International", Issue 8, Nov. 1969, the issue in which the first half of the story, "The Comedy of the White Dog" first appeared ten years earlier.

Signed without dedication in black ink to the half-title, this is Gray's first published work, featuring two stories, "The Comedy of the White Dog" (1970) and "The Crank Who Made the Revolution" (1971). 600 copies were printed, 26 signed and lettered A-Z, 576 unsigned. This is one of the 576, though signed. The Glasgow Print Studio Press was a writers' co-operative founded by Calum McKenzie (the Print Studio boss) and the writer James Kelman with a mission to publish "good small books at a cheap price" by what turned out to be a nine-strong collective. The final page lists available and forthcoming titles. Gray has written that "[w]hen the co-op was disbanded we each took away a great pile of our unsold work. I dumped nearly all of mine ("The Comedy of the White Dog") in my Kersland Street dustbin" ("A Life in Pictures", p. 207). David Rees, in his 1991 bibliography of Gray's works, states that the author destroyed 200 copies. (Moores A1a & C4 [journal])