MAILER, NORMAN (1923 - 2007
The naked and the dead


Heinemann/Nederland, The Hague. 1952. First Dutch edition. Hardcover. Original limp green cloth binding. Twelvemo. 490 pp. 12½ x 18½ x 2 cm. 290 gr. Text in English. Issued as Volume I in the "Tocsin Book Series, A New Library of English and American Authors".


Mailer's important debut novel, notable for its (almost) no-holds-barred depiction of the ugliness of war, notable also for the introduction of "fug" and its many variants (including "mother-fuggin") as a substitute for a word that was, even then, pretty well known and widely used, albeit not in polite (or public) discourse. (Mailer's concession to his nervous publishers, it was also immortalized in the apocryphal -- and according to Mailer, completely made up by her press agent -- remark of actress Tallulah Bankhead, allegedly uttered upon being introduced to the author: "You're the young man that doesn't know how to spell 'fuck.'") In the somewhat watered-down 1958 movie version, directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson and Raymond Massey, not only did nobody say "fuck," but (this still being the era of Hollywood's Production Code) they weren't even permitted to utter a single "goddam," an epithet which appears on pretty much every one of the book's 490 pages.


"The narrative presents, with great accuracy and power, the agony of the American troops in the Pacific campaign. It remains Mailer's best, and certainly the best war novel to emerge from the United States" (Burgess, 42-3).


Written when Mailer was just twenty-five, The Naked and the Dead is one of the classic novels of World War II. It was both a critical and a commercial success. It immediately launched Mailer's literary career and it remains one of the most influential novels of the century.



Pages are clean and unmarked. Spine faded. Binding is tight, hinges strong. Previous owner's name on front end paper. Hard to find original.




BOOKNUMBER: 17257