Galatea

First edition. Crown 8vo. Pp. 287, [1, blank]. Publisher's forest green cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket illustration by Linda Garland (priced £5.75 net to front flap). Published as part of Gollancz's New Fiction Society series.

Signed by Author to title page, bearing the printed legend 'Everything is what it seems'. A tight, unread copy, without any 'give' to the textblock, which remains clean and bright, bar a minuscule reddish spot to the f.f.e.p. top edge, and upper book corners gently bumped. Complete dustwrapper creased in places from a too-tightly applied protective wrapper, faint foxing to verso panels (not visible to front), and publisher's New Fiction Society sticker to the foot of lightly faded spine.

Author's scarce second novel, an allegorical adult fantasy. Martin Browning goes in search of his missing wife in a wild quest that takes him to South America and beyond. Kirkus Reviews in a prescient book review in March 1979 remarked that "Pullman is not without ideas or talent; both shine often enough through this grandiose muddle to make one wonder what he'll do next." Well, we all know what he did do next. His Dark Materials trilogy (1995–2000), now ranks him alongside J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as one of the greatest children's and fantasy writers of all time.