A MESSIAH OF THE LAST DAYS

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Inscribed presentation copy. Publisher's original tan cloth, with titles in gilt to the spine, in the John Sewell illustrated dustwrapper. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, bright and fresh. The contents are clean throughout. Complete with the rubbed and nicked dustwrapper that has some fading to the spine and panel edges. Not price-clipped (£2.95 net to the front flap).

Inscribed by the author in black ink to the title page "C. J. Driver / Signed for Frank Pike / September 1974 / with love and thanks / Jonty". Charles Jonathan 'Jonty' Driver (1939-2023), South African anti-apartheid activist, political prisoner, educationalist, poet and writer. The recipient is Frank Pike, editor at Faber, who over four decades, from the 1960s, onwards was responsible for the Faber drama list, recruiting Tom Stoppard, Simon Gray, Brian Friel, Sam Shepard, and Alan Bennett, among others, as well as working closely with authors already publishing with the firm, notably Samuel Beckett. Charles Jonathan "Jonty" Driver (1939-2023) was a South African-born anti-apartheid activist, political prisoner, educator, novelist and poet. This is his fourth novel, described by the publisher as 'a profound meditation on politics and a complex portrait of English society' (Faber, 2021).