A Clockwork Orange

London: Penguin Books.. 1972.

"too didactic to be artistic"

Presentation copy with illustration of a clockwork orange on title page. 180x112mm. pp. 143 [1]. This is a reprint from the same year as the first Penguin paperback edition of A Clockwork Orange. In the highly distinctive David Pelham designed wrappers. Some rubbing to wrappers and soiling and toning to edges. Hinges delicate and slightly creased. Inscription in blue ink reads "(the last chapter is missing) To Kristian with kindest regards Anthony Burgess London 8.2.90", with Burgess's line drawing of a clockwork orange.

A unique copy of a controversial novel. Even Burgess himself later declared that he was "nauseated" by the violence and found the book "too didactic to be artistic".

"We all suffer from the popular desire to make the known notorious. The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me until I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation, and the same may be said of Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover."

[ref. 5314]