ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

New York: The Viking Press, 1962. First edition. Very good in very good plus jacket.. Inscribed first printing of the influential literary achievement by a towering figure of the counterculture. The basis for one of the defining films of 1970s cinema, Kesey's novel was first published more than a decade earlier, at the dawn of the '60s, and is all the more shocking for that original context. The novel is set in a men's psychiatric hospital among inmates who, afflicted variously by mental illness, minority status, criminal convictions, and aggressive nonconformity, are all subject to the indignities and cruelties of nurses and doctors alike. Kesey's sadistic Nurse Ratched lives on as a quasi-folk myth, like the real Lizzie Borden and the fictional Annie Wilkes; her name is perhaps better known even than Kesey's own.

An enduring attack on the establishment's power to punish and enforce. 8'' x 5.5''. Original green cloth, spine lettered in yellow. Original unclipped color dust jacket designed by Paul Bacon, photographic portrait of Kesey by Hank Kranzler on rear panel. Beige topstain. [8], 311, [1] pages. Kesey's inscription scrawled in black ink across front paste-down ("For Darrel / Kesey 1993"); previous owner's signature penned to front endpaper. Jacket spine only just sunned; a touch of rubbing at spine folds, faint scratching (close inspection only) on front panel. Mild patches of offsetting and small stamp "Fe 21 '62" to verso of jacket. Small water spot to cloth. Presents beautifully.