ENDO, Shusaku. Wonderful Fool. Trans. from the Japanese by Francis Mathy. London: Peter Owen. 1974. Small 8vo. First British Commonwealth edition. Publisher’s black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Keith Cunningham. A very good or better copy. The cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, with some mild spots to the textblock top edge. The contents clean and fine. The dust jacket unclipped (£3.25 net), very gently rubbed at extremities.
The first English language edition of the author’s third novel to be published in English, originally written and published in Tokyo in 1959. Its eponymous wonderful fool is just that, a wise fool whose seemingly naive, self-sacrificing outlook allows all manner of character to exploit him, yet he ultimately inspires each of them to better themselves, be they a dog or a hardened killer. Like many of his other works, the central theme is the examination of ‘mudswamp Japan’—the Japanese inner world of moral apathy and insensitivity to God and sin, as it interacts with the world of the Christian West. Scarce.
ENDO, Shusaku. Wonderful Fool. Trans. from the Japanese by Francis Mathy. London: Peter Owen. 1974. Small 8vo. First British Commonwealth edition. Publisher’s black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by Keith Cunningham. A very good or better copy. The cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, with some mild spots to the textblock top edge. The contents clean and fine. The dust jacket unclipped (£3.25 net), very gently rubbed at extremities.
The first English language edition of the author’s third novel to be published in English, originally written and published in Tokyo in 1959. Its eponymous wonderful fool is just that, a wise fool whose seemingly naive, self-sacrificing outlook allows all manner of character to exploit him, yet he ultimately inspires each of them to better themselves, be they a dog or a hardened killer. Like many of his other works, the central theme is the examination of ‘mudswamp Japan’—the Japanese inner world of moral apathy and insensitivity to God and sin, as it interacts with the world of the Christian West. Scarce.
