Chatto & Windus, London, 1932
First Edition, First Printing A superb Near fine book with a stunning Fine/near fine vibrant original dust jacket. Named by Modern Library as one of the 100 Greatest Novels of the twentieth century. “A nightmarish prognostication of a future in which humanity has been destroyed by science. Easily Huxley’s most popular (and many good judges continue to think his best) novel”.
The book is in beautiful condition with bright blue boards still retaining their original sheen, with bright unfaded gilt titles to spine. The boards have sharp corners and no edgewear, and one tiny edge bump. The binding is tight and square. The end papers and internal pages are clean, with NO owner names, NO inscriptions, NO bookstore stamps and NO bookplates. The internal pages are clean, bright and flat with some dots of foxing to the first few leaves and a few stray dots to the outer page block. Otherwise no stains, no marks, no writing, no handling marks, and no bent pages. Lovely book appearing as unread. Rough cut page edges as published. Please see detailed images.
The scarce original dust jacket has benefited from very slight restoration to the outer spine tips by an expert paper conservator and as such presents as a near fine example. The Brave New World jacket is known to be extremely fragile, and usually in pieces, or has a lot of sunning (browning) to the spine, or the spine may be missing altogether. This jacket has strong vibrant colors with NO sunning to the spine, no rips, no chips, no edgewear, no stains, no fading, and no rubbing, but few dots of foxing to the inner flaps. An absolutely lovely bright, vibrant dust jacket presenting the book very well. The jacket is NOT price clipped, and has a stated price of 7s. 6d.net. Please see detailed images.
A defining moment in the genre of the dystopian novel, Brave New World considers the dangers that new technologies and mass modernization pose to the very core of humanness. Rather than depicting these developments as gateways to utopia, as writers such as H.G. Wells had done, Huxley foreshadowed how radically technology and psychological conditioning could limit individual rights ranging from sexuality and reproduction to creativity to love. A “nightmarish prognostication of a future in which humanity has been destroyed by science” (DNB).
A very handsome fine/near fine example of this classic fragile book.
