LOVE AND NAPALM: EXPORT U.S.A

First US edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Original black cloth with red and copper lettering to the spine, in the dustwrapper designed by Kay Sussman. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean and without inscriptions or stamps. In the fine, bright dustwrapper, whose only flaw is a tiny nick (c. 1 mm) to the lower spine tip. Not price-clipped ($5.95 to the front flap). A lovely copy.

Signed by J. G. Ballard in black ink to the title page. 'Love and Napalm' was the first US edition of the novel published in the UK as 'The Atrocity Exhibition' two years earlier. In a 1991 interview with Jeremy Lewis, Ballard explained that, following the puzzled and disapproving reception in the UK, the projected US Doubleday edition "was pulped three weeks before publication. I'm told that one of the senior members of the Doubleday firm, Nelson Doubleday, actually opened a copy and saw the Ronald Reagan story ['Why I Want to F*** Ronald Reagan'] and he just sent the order to destroy the entire edition." When Grove Press eventually published it in 1972 it was retitled against the author's wishes, "They wanted to cash in on the Vietnam War, but I didn't really have much choice in the matter. I protested strongly that was the wrong title, totally wrong." The William Burroughs preface first appeared in this US edition. ('Extreme Metaphors: Selected Interviews with J. G. Ballard, 1967-2008', London 2012)