Finney (Charles G.) The Circus of Doctor Lao
£150
London, Grey Walls Press, 1948.
First UK edition. 8vo. Original yellow cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
The first UK edition of Finney’s most famous work, set in the fictional town of Abalone, Arizona, where a circus owned by the enigmatic Chinese Dr. Lao arrives carrying legendary mythological characters, whose interactions with the sceptical, unmoved townspeople reflects darkly on human nature, illusion, and the refusal of wonder. Superbly illustrated by Gordon Noel Fish, providing ‘serious studies in the art of the grotesque’ (jacket blurb). The novel won one of the inaugural National Book Awards, for Most Original Book of 1935.
Out of stock
Cloth bumped at head of spine; jacket price-clipped, worn at spine ends and corners.
Illustrations and wraparound jacket artwork by G.N. Fish.
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