Summertime. Scenes from Provincial Life
London, Harvill Secker, 2009 (second impression)/ 2009.
Octavo; a unique copy in a one-off designer binding by Stephen Conway: full black morocco almost completely masked by laminated panels of text and images in checker-board patterns mounted front and rear, with the title deeply impressed in black on five panels of tan morocco mounted on the spine; the edges are dyed light grey and have continuations of the cover design in ink on them; a very fine copy in the original custom-made box (with the author and title in black on the spine) and a slipcase.
'Each of the shortlisted authors receives ... a specially bound edition of their book' (from the Man Booker Prize website). This novel was shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize; this copy has mounted on the flyleaf a paper label with the printed heading 'The Man Booker Prize 2009. Finalist bound by [Stephen Conway] Fellow of Designer Bookbinders', with Conway's name added in ink in a calligraphic hand. The title page is signed by the author, the first person to win the Booker Prize twice, in 1983 and again in 1999, 'when he described the Booker as the ultimate prize to win in the English speaking world (MBP website).
Item #106586
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