[London]: Macgibbon & Kee.. 1966.
Inscribed by Naughton to the critic John Russell Taylor.
First edition of the novel taken from the 1963 stage play, itself adapted from a radio play. 196x127mm. pp. [8], 9-208. Brown cloth, original illustrated dustjacket. Some rubbing to extremities of jacket and a small mark on upper cover but otherwise in excellent condition throughout. Front free endpaper is inscribed "To John Russell Taylor with good wishes from Bill Naughton. 13th Feb 66". Loosely inserted is a letter to Russell Taylor (also dated 13th February 1966) from Naughton's wife Erna: "Here is the book I promised to post to you. I told my husband that you won't read it till you have seen the film". The film was, of course, the ground-breaking and now classic picture starring Michael Caine. Also loosely inserted is a letter from a firm of London estate agents inviting Russell Taylor to have his flat valued and suggesting that it might be worth £1.1m. Which would have solved some of Alfie's problems.
Beneath a chirpy, cocksure exterior, Alfie the character and Alfie the play/novel/film is dark and uncomfortable. It deals with infidelity, abortion, mental breakdown and transgresses the class barriers which, at the beginning of the 1960s were still in place, but by the end, had started to dissolve, in no small part thanks to works such as this. The association with John Russell Taylor is an important one. Taylor was one of the most important and perceptive film, theatre and art critics of the late twentieth century as well as a biographer of many of the leading figures of the film world, including Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles. He also wrote extensively on "Angry Theatre", that genre of "Kitchen Sink Drama" kickstarted by John Osborne and of which Bill Naughton's Alfie, with its portrayal of working-class disaffection, is a close cousin.
