BARTH, John. Giles Goat-Boy or, The Revised New Syllabus. London: Secker and Warburg. 1967. Thick 8vo. First British edition. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket by Kenneth Reilly. A very good example overall, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square. Small instance of rubbing to the textblock bottom edge, but fine internally. The dust jacket unclipped (42s net) with several rubbed corners, most notably to the front panel upper corner with neat tape repair to the joint at verso. Other corners and spine tips gently rubbed with some tiny nicks, but a sharp example overall.
A pomo heavyweight of the fatboy variation, Barth’s 710pp comic, absurd, metatextual monolith can wane on even the most ardent fanboys, but even for its plot about, well, everything and nothing, its odd protagonist—George, raised by goats—, its gradual cultural ageing and its bizarre sexual weirdness, it’s still a damn sight better than most contemporary novels. This British edition considerably scarcer than its US published a year prior.
BARTH, John. Giles Goat-Boy or, The Revised New Syllabus. London: Secker and Warburg. 1967. Thick 8vo. First British edition. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket by Kenneth Reilly. A very good example overall, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square. Small instance of rubbing to the textblock bottom edge, but fine internally. The dust jacket unclipped (42s net) with several rubbed corners, most notably to the front panel upper corner with neat tape repair to the joint at verso. Other corners and spine tips gently rubbed with some tiny nicks, but a sharp example overall.
A pomo heavyweight of the fatboy variation, Barth’s 710pp comic, absurd, metatextual monolith can wane on even the most ardent fanboys, but even for its plot about, well, everything and nothing, its odd protagonist—George, raised by goats—, its gradual cultural ageing and its bizarre sexual weirdness, it’s still a damn sight better than most contemporary novels. This British edition considerably scarcer than its US published a year prior.
