£150
FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR, 8vo, pp. 275, [1] + colour-printed frontispiece. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, dustjacket printed in blue, black and orange. Dustjacket chipped with some loss to spine panel, sunning to spine panel and exposed areas of spine cloth. Inscribed to flyleaf: ‘Sincerely Yours, Edward Gaitens’.
The first edition of the only novel by Glasgow writer Edward Gaitens (1897-1966), a tale of Gorbals life in the first half of the century, influenced by the author's own Glasgow upbringing and his time imprisoned at Wormwood Scrubs as a Conscientious Objector during the First World War. It was republished by Canongate in 1990, but the first printing is scarce: Library Hub records three copies, at Glasgow, NLW and Oxford, with NLS holding a 1949 second edition. This copy has been inscribed by Gaitens to the flyleaf.
