Description

INSCRIBED BY NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER WILLIAM GOLDING, FIRST EDITION OF THE SPIRE

GOLDING, William. The Spire. London: Faber and Faber, (1964). Crown octavo, original maroon cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of Golding’s metaphoric novel about humanity’s fundamental urge to create, inscribed, “With best wishes, William Golding.”

His first novel after retiring from teaching in order to devote his life to writing, Golding’s The Spire tells the story of one man’s obsessive desire to build a 400-foot cathedral spire. “Between Golding and what is easily accepted of recent literature in English? his total achievement looks like Mount Everest, rising with its long plume of cloud above everything near it? In most of Golding’s novels there are particular symbols which seem to embody what the book as a whole is doing? In two of the greatest novels? [Pincher Martin] and The Spire? the urge to create is a need for absolution” (Stephen Medcalf, TLS). Book fine. Very lightest edge-wear to bright about-fine dust jacket. A highly desirable inscribed copy.