Herzog

First UK edition. 8vo. Pp. viii, 341, [3 (blank)]. Brown cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket design by John Griffiths (priced 21s net to front flap). In the first issue cloth and dustjacket sans review quotes to front panel, with back panel featuring blurbs of author's previous books.

Subsequently re-issued in black cloth, with initial front panel jacket quote from The New Yorker, later replaced by that of George Steiner's from The Sunday Times.

Author's sixth novel. Nobel Prize winner's second National Book Award win (one of three) – an unequalled feat. Awarded the 1965 Prix International by a consortium of international publishers. Named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best novels in the English language since 1923.

His wife having abandoned him for his best friend, Herzog is on the verge of mental collapse and has embarked on a furious letter-writing campaign as an outlet for his all-consuming rage. An autobiographical novel likened to Joyce's Ulysses and inspired by Bellow's profound shock at learning that his friend, Jack Ludwig, had cuckolded him.

"Bellow's acknowledged masterwork." –Literary Encyclopedia