With the Booker Prize wraparound.

NEWBY, P. H. ~ Something to Answer For.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Faber and Faber, London: 1968.

8vo., bright orange cloth, lettered in blue to spine; in the orange, red and white printed dustwrapper (unclipped, priced 30s £1.50 net to front flap); together with the rare Booker Prize wraparound band 'Winner of the £5,000 Booker Prize 1969'; THE BOOK near-fine, a touched bumped at spine tips, with splash mark to upper edge; THE WRAPPER very good, retaining much of its original colour; with some creasing, most heavily so to the edge of the lower flap; some light even shelfwear and marking; the wraparound just a touch sunned to spine but else near-fine. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition, first printing. The winner of the inaugural Booker Prize, which was established by Jock Campbell, Charles Tyrrell and Tom Maschler. Named after the sponsorship company Booker, McConnell Ltd, the prize was intended to be awarded to a single work of fiction in English, with the reward originally set at £5000. It remains one of the worlds world's richest and most prestigious literary prizes. P. H. Newby had already published sixteen novels throughout the 1940s and 50s, and had won several prizes including the Somerset Maugham Prize when he was awarded the first ever Booker Prize for 'Something to Answer For'. Newby served in France and Middle East during the Second World War, and went on to teach English in Cairo before working for the BBC as a radio producer, later becoming managing director at BBC Radio. Based on his own experiences of the capital city 'Something to Answer For' is set in Egypt during the Suez Crisis, and follows the protagonist, Townrow, as he travels back to Port Said to investigate the murder of his friend Elie Khoury. As he plans begin to unravel, the president announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, with chaos ensuing both in the life of Townrow, and in the country itself. Humorous, disorientating, and with vivid descriptions of Egypt during the 1950s, the novel blurs the lines between imagination and reality. Many have puzzled over the fact that that the author did not achieve fame during his lifetime, with Graham Greene “A fine writer who has never had the full recognition he deserves” and later the author's friend Anthony Thwaite calling the author, in his obituary, “One of the best English novelists of the second half of the century.” "Townrow saw himself floating in and out of this dream for the rest of his life, and each time there would be a new twist. Next time there would be no nuns and the warship would be American. There would be times when there was a cross on the dead man’s chest and there would be times when there was not. The terrible thing about the form this particular dream took was the longing." Scarce with the wraparound.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good