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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by KESEY Ken
- Used
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
1962. First Edition . Signed. KESEY, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Viking, (1962). Octavo, original green cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $12,500.First edition of Kesey's most ""popular and enduring"" work, a distinctive presentation copy inscribed by him in red and black ink, ""for N— Ken Kesey,"" in original dust jacket, housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box.""Ken Kesey's first novel remains his most popular and enduring…Cuckoo's Nest resonates with the classic theme of the individual rebelling against the controlling forces of society"" (Books of the Century, 98). On publication in 1962, ""Time magazine called Cuckoo's Nest 'a roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the invisible Rulers who enforce them"" (New York Times). Adapted to the stage in 1963, with Kirk Douglas in the lead, the novel was the basis for the highly successful 1975 film starring Jack Nicholson. First issue, with ""that fool Red Cross woman"" on page 9, lines 12-13, in first issue dust jacket containing Kerouac's endorsement on the front flap. Book fine; price-clipped dust jacket extremely good with several closed tears, light chipping to spine ends with front panel particularly bright and colorful. An exceptionally desirable inscribed copy.
Synopsis
An international bestseller and the basis for a hugely successful film, Ken Kesey 's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was one of the defining works of the 1960s. This version of the novel is bound with the traditional cover. A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's revolution against Big Nurse and everything she stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce power struggle with shattering results. With One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , Kesey created a work without precedent in American literature, a novel at once comic and tragic that probes the nature of madness and sanity, authority and vitality. Greeted by unanimous acclaim when it was first published, the book has become and enduring favorite of readers.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Bauman Rare Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 124730
- Title
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Author
- KESEY Ken
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Date Published
- 1962
Terms of Sale
Bauman Rare Books
All items are subject to prior sale. All items are guaranteed as described. Refunds are limited to original purchase price. Items may be returned within 30 days of receipt if unsatisfactory for any reason (please notify us prior to returning, preferably by phone.)
About the Seller
Bauman Rare Books
Biblio member since 2009
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
About Bauman Rare Books
In business since 1973, Bauman Rare Books now has locations in New York, Philadelphia and Las Vegas.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Clamshell Box
- A protective box designed for storing and preserving a bound book or loose sheets. A clamshell box is hinged on one side, with...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Morocco
- Morocco is a style of leather book binding that is usually made with goatskin, as it is durable and easy to dye. (see also...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Inscribed
- When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Chipping
- A defect in which small pieces are missing from the edges; fraying or small pieces of paper missing the edge of a paperback, or...
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