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Hampson, John ~ Strip Jack Naked : Signed By The Author In The Year Of Publication

First UK Printing : William Heinemann Ltd., London: 1934

The First UK Printing published by William Heinemann Ltd., London in 1934. 8vo., green cloth lettered in gilt along backstrip; publisher’s device in blind to lower board; complete in the unclipped pictorial wrapper (7/6 net); The BOOK with boards a little rubbed and bumped at corners and spine ends; a couple of very light spots to the upper edge; else a clean and bright copy. The WRAPPER is in Very Good++ or better condition with some minor shelf wear and light age related markings; some light toning along the spine; and a couple of very light vertical creases to the flaps; slightly nicked and rubbed to the upper edge with small rubs to the head of flap folds. The unattributed wrapper artwork looks striking in the removable Brodart archival cover. The book has been signed and dated by the author in the year of publication to the front free endpaper: “Inscribed for E. Welch/with all good wishes, John Hampson, 5-7-34”. The inscription is penned in his customary brown ink, which the author used for the majority of his manuscripts throughout his life. Born in 1901 to an impoverished family, John Hampson Simpson took a series of unrelated jobs during and after the war, beginning in munitions factory before becoming a kitchen-hand, a waiter, a chef, a billiard-marker and later helping his sister to run a public house in Derbyshire. All of these experiences would later impact his writings, and despite a limited education he maintained an interest in books, despite at one point being convicted for stealing a series of them - for which he served a term in Wormwood Scrubs. Under the name John Hampson, he began to write novels, and his first, Saturday night at the Greyhound was published by the Hogarth Press in 1931. It remains his most popular work. Strip Jack Naked was Hampson’s fifth work of fiction, and follows a man whose character is developed following the death of his overbearing older brother. The novel may have been inspired, in part, by his older brother Jimmy Simpson, one of the most successful motorcycle riders before WWII. The novel itself, however, was less successful than his previous works, and was rejected by the Hogarth Press but later picked up by Heinemann and published in 1934. Hampson went on to become friends with such major literary figures as Graham Greene, E. M. Forster and W. H. Auden, and became one of the major players in the ‘Birmingham Group’, although he died in poverty, and his name has now somewhat faded into obscurity.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good++