One Hand Clapping

London: Peter Davies. Near Fine in Very Good- dj. 1961. First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . (price-clipped) [very light foxing to top edge, otherwise a nice fresh copy with no significant wear; jacket has one tiny chip at top of front panel, also torn with a bit of paper loss at top rear hinge and bottom front hinge, one additional small closed tear at top of rear panel, minor edgewear elsewhere]. Early novel by Burgess, the first of two published under this pseudonym. Satirical novel about a young married couple, "the husband having a sort of brain good an winning quizzes, so he wins The Big Money on a TV quiz and then puts the money on horses and he becomes a rich man. And so then they have the best of everything, like a mink for her and staying at posh hotels [etc.] .... but there's always been something niggling in him all the about the world being a rotten place and not even money can buy anything to make the world a less rotten place and so he suggests that they do themselves in." Burgess supposedly limited the novel's vocabulary to just 800 words, part of his message about the dumbing-down of modern media culture -- but he made up for this atypical restraint with "A Clockwork Orange," published the following year. It was reported well over a decade ago that Francis Coppola had acquired the movie rights, but that would seem to have gone into deep turnaround. .