A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Uncorrected proof copy of the first edition, first printing. Publisher's light green paper covers, illustrated and with titles printed in black to the upper cover and spine. A good copy, the binding toned to the edges, creased to the corners and spine, with splits at the fold ends. Hand written publication date and publication price in blue ink to the upper edge of the front cover. The contents, are entirely complete, without loose or torn pages and without inscriptions or stamps. The text block edges are foxed and there is a little creasing some page edges. Housed in a bespoke purple cloth solander case, with titles in orange to the spine. Rare in this form. The pre-publication proof was cheaply produced in very small numbers, strictly for in-house editorial purposes. It includes, with minor layout alterations to the first published edition, a chapter that was subsequently removed from the first American edition.

Burgess regularly expressed frustration at the disproportionate attention garnered by 'A Clockwork Orange'. The novel, he later recalled, "fell into a great silence, as many books do" following its publication in 1962, "but then a film was made of it ten years later, and [...] my trouble began". The film, of course, was Stanley Kubrick's infamous 1971 adaptation starring Malcolm McDowell as Alex (Andy Warhol had earlier adapted the book for his film 'Vinyl' in 1965), and the "trouble" was being "accused of fomenting violence, rape, mayhem, as it were, because of this film and because of the book it was based on". Burgess was ambivalent about the very aspects of the book that made it famous. "It was certainly no pleasure to me to describe acts of violence" he recalled in 1972, later expressing the more nuanced view that "I was sickened by my own excitement at setting it down". It is the book's language, however, that makes it so extraordinary, "nadsat", the vivid Anglo-American-Slavic language used by its characters generating its remarkable energy (and indeed violence). Burgess began writing the book upon his return to Britain from Malaya and Brunei in 1960 (he was an education officer for the Colonial Service) and it also reflects the author's reaction to a pop and youth culture (including violent clashes between Mods and Rockers) that he was experiencing for the first time after being away for six years. ('Conversations with Anthony Burgess', ed. by Earl and Mary Ingersoll, Mississippi: 2008; Brewer A04; Boytinck 75).