Beschreibung:

Lord of the Flies, 1st edition, 1954, verso of half-title with authorial ink inscription to Richard Adams and with mounted photograph cutting of William Golding (latter offset to title-page), Richard Adams's ownership signature on front free endpaper, and his bookplate on front pastedown, original red cloth, spine lettered in white (a trifle faded at ends), dustjacket, dusty and spine toned, extremities rubbed and frayed in places, with some chipping (head of spine with partial loss of 'Lord'), 8vo A wonderful association copy inscribed by the author: 'For Richard Adams from William Golding'. Like Richard Adams, William Golding is chiefly known for his first novel, despite his subsequent literary output. Also like Adams, Golding's masterpiece was at first rejected multiple times by publishers. In addition, both authors were avid and expert chess players. They played correspondence chess together, and both belonged to a wider literary chess circle which included the poet and Oxford academic John Fuller, and journalist and critic Anthony Curtis. Richard Adams, in his autobiography, draws a parallel between an event in Golding's work and his own over-sensitive response to Schubert's 'Unfinished Symphony': "The pizzicato opening seemed grim and dire. I felt (although, of course, it hadn't yet been written) like Simon, in William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies', confronted by the pig's head on a stick. It assured him that life was a bad business.' (Richard Adams, The Day Gone By, An Autobiography, 1990, page 37-38). (1)