THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

First English edition, first printing. Original green cloth with silver titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. A near very good copy, the binding firm, the corners bumped, the cloth rubbed and with some wrinkling to the slightly rolled spine. The contents, with a bookplate to the front pastedown and seemingly issued without a front endpaper, has a couple of tiny ink spots to the text block fore-edge and some spotting to the prelims, are otherwise clean throughout. Complete with the rubbed, nicked and creased dustwrapper which has a number of closed tears and some loss at the base of the spine. Not price-clipped (10s 6d on the front flap). The first impression is quite scarce.

A novel about prisoners of war labouring on a railway bridge in Burma during World War II. Though the novel is fictionalised and features no real people as characters, Boulle drew from his own experience of forced labour during World War II and from the real construction of the Burma or "Death" Railway by prisoners of war under the control of the Japanese Imperial Army. The basis for the 1957 Academy Award winning film of the same name, directed by David Lean, starring William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa.