BOY.
London: Boriswood Limited, 1931. 1st Trade Edition (Gibbs A6b). 271, [1 (blank)] pp. Crown 8vo. 7-1/2" x 5". Orange cloth binding. Printed pale orange dust jacket. Light & soiling wear to binding, with boards slightly splayed. Usual foxing & age-toning to paper. A VG - VG+ book in a VG jacket, which has a sun-tanned backstrip. Item #52215
In Boy, young Fearon's isolation and suffering arise because no one cares for him. The story of Boy is "sordid and horrible". The young protagonist's parents are only interested in the wages he can earn, and encourage him to leave school as soon as possible. Likewise society is unconcerned about the harsh, unhealthy conditions he endures cleaning ships' boilers. Then, when he goes to sea, he is sexually abused by his fellow seamen. Finally, when young Fearon is dying in agony from a venereal disease caught in a Cairo brothel, his Captain smothers him.
Boy was reprinted in 1931, and 1932, when an American first edition was also published. Then, when it was reprinted in 1934, in a cheap (second) edition with a 'scantily dressed' belly dancer on its cover, Boy was prosecuted for obscenity. The court case followed a complaint to the police in Bury, near Manchester, Lancashire: 'The prosecution suggested that the cover of the book and extracts from reviews just inside were most suggestive, and that the purpose was to pollute young people's minds'. The publishers Boriswood 'were advised that, owing to the book's reference to 'intimacy between members of the male sex', any defence against prosecution was futile'. In March 1935 Boriswood pleaded guilty of "uttering and publishing an obscene libel" and paid a substantial fine.
Subsequently Boy was republished by the Obelisk Press in Paris in 1935 and 1946. Jack Kahane owner of this company was a noted publisher of banned books in English, including Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley's Lover. Other editions followed, including one by Penguin Books in 1992, with an introduction by Anthony Burgess and most recently, in 2007, by Oneworld Classics." [Wiki].
Price: $325.00