Wyndham (John) Trouble with Lichen

London, Michael Joseph, 1960.

First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original dark grey boards. Dust-jacket.

The last of the novels published in Wyndham’s lifetime under the famous name at full stride, and the one whose reputation has travelled furthest: a lichen extract, the “antigerone,” is found to slow human ageing – and the two discoverers split on what to do with two or three centuries of life. A thriller plot wearing a genuinely radical argument about gerontocracy, cosmetics and female emancipation; sixty years on it gets cited in bioethics discussions more than anything else he wrote. Very good in equally good Hugh Marshall wrapper.