BALLARD, James Graham. Crash. London: Jonathan Cape. 1973. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the iconic dust jacket, a wraparound gearstick design by Bill Botten. A very good copy. The cloth clean and bright, trivial marks to backstrip with some very mild discolouration to spine tips. The binding tight and square, with a few very mild marks to textblock edges. The contents clean and fine throughout, with ink ownership inscription to front endpaper corner of Howard Brenton, the British playwright and screenwriter. The dust jacket unclipped (£2.25 net), some mild rubbing to spine tips and corners, one tiny nick to upper edge front panel, the spine perhaps just a trifle toned with some of the usual bubbling of the laminate to the centre of spine, a very frequent issue with this book. Mild crease to rear flap corner, but a sharp and well-preserved copy overall.
Probably the author’s most notable work, a Baudrillardian bizarro tale of car crash fetishists who dream of going out only one way. Horrific, depraved, entirely perverse, and so good, it’s literal car crash stuff—you can’t look away. Basis for the 1996 film of the same name directed by David Cronenberg. The jacket design is by Bill Botten, who became a Jonathan Cape stalwart alongside Stanley Chapman, Craig Dodd, Leigh Taylor and others, the set helping the publisher move away from the largely typographical mid-century designs of Hans Tisdall and into a realm of often sickly-sweet psychedelic and experimental forms.
BALLARD, James Graham. Crash. London: Jonathan Cape. 1973. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the iconic dust jacket, a wraparound gearstick design by Bill Botten. A very good copy. The cloth clean and bright, trivial marks to backstrip with some very mild discolouration to spine tips. The binding tight and square, with a few very mild marks to textblock edges. The contents clean and fine throughout, with ink ownership inscription to front endpaper corner of Howard Brenton, the British playwright and screenwriter. The dust jacket unclipped (£2.25 net), some mild rubbing to spine tips and corners, one tiny nick to upper edge front panel, the spine perhaps just a trifle toned with some of the usual bubbling of the laminate to the centre of spine, a very frequent issue with this book. Mild crease to rear flap corner, but a sharp and well-preserved copy overall.
Probably the author’s most notable work, a Baudrillardian bizarro tale of car crash fetishists who dream of going out only one way. Horrific, depraved, entirely perverse, and so good, it’s literal car crash stuff—you can’t look away. Basis for the 1996 film of the same name directed by David Cronenberg. The jacket design is by Bill Botten, who became a Jonathan Cape stalwart alongside Stanley Chapman, Craig Dodd, Leigh Taylor and others, the set helping the publisher move away from the largely typographical mid-century designs of Hans Tisdall and into a realm of often sickly-sweet psychedelic and experimental forms.
