Lot 280
Koestler, Arthur
Darkness at Noon
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 07 February 2024 from 10:00 GMT
Description
Translated by Daphne Hardy. London: Jonathan Cape, 1940. First edition, first impression, 8vo, original light brown cloth lettered in red, bottom edge untrimmed, with the dust jacket (priced 8s, unclipped, flaps and rear panel blank). Spine slightly rolled, a few small marks to rear board, light spotting to top edge of textblock, dust jacket with intermittent rubbing and a few very small nicks and ships along top and bottom edges, rear panel dust-soiled and with a few splash-marks
Footnote
A superb copy of 'one of the best-known and most widely read political novels of the twentieth century' (ODNB), retaining the extremely uncommon dust jacket in an excellent state of preservation. We trace one other copy in auction records with the jacket, in that instance price-clipped and repaired; Anthony Hobson's copy, with a presentation inscription to him from Koestler, did not have a jacket at all. The rarity of the first edition is often ascribed to the destruction of a large proportion of the print run during the Blitz. Darkness at Noon was Koestler's third published book in English, following Spanish Testament (1937) and The Gladiators (1939).