THE RACHEL PAPERS

First edition, first printing. Original black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dustwrapper designed by Keith Davis, with Stanley Devon's brooding portrait of the young Amis on the rear panel. Upper edge coloured red. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt sharp, the contents clean throughout. In the near fine dustwrapper, the red pigment on the spine a little faded (notably less than usual with this title), with a few very light surface marks. Light rubbing to edges and extremities. Not price clipped (£2.25 to the front flap). An uncommonly bright and attractive copy.

Amis' exhuberant first novel is a semi-autobiographical account of Charles Highway, aged nineteen, and his complicated relationship with the eponymous Rachel Noyes the year before university and encroaching adulthood. Amis was later critical of the book, but even in 2010 conceded that the writing was "terribly alive", even if "the craft, the sex, the setups [were] cack-handed". It is, needless to say, a very funny book and, cack-handed or not, was winner of the illustrious Somerset Maugham award for the best novel by a writer under thirty-five. It was adapted for a 1989 film directed by Damian Harris and starring Dexter Fletcher as Charles and Ione Sky as Rachel.