Dangerous Voyage [Williwaw]

Pirated Edition. [1976]. 8vo. 158pp. Publisher's navy blue buckram, stamped in gilt with a nautical illustration to spine and front. No dustwrapper, as issued. 1/300 copies printed. Originally published as Williwaw by E.P. Dutton in 1946. A mass market edition by New American Library/Signet Books was first brought out under the present title in March 1953.

Operating out of a post office box address in Mattituck, New York, the present publisher, Amereon Ltd through its various imprints (such as Amereon House, Rivercity Press, Aeonian Press, and the American Reprint Company) specialised in supplying institutional libraries with out-of-copyright reprints, with minimal production values, and often without dustwrappers, as in this case.

Lacking a publisher's imprint to the book covers or title page and simply photo-reproducing the text block of the original edition, they circumvented royalty channels and any due copyright fees, something that stirred the ire of the author. On seeing this copy at a signing session of the Buxton Literary Festival in Derbyshire, England, on 26 October, 2000, Vidal warned it was a pirated edition but graciously signed it to the title-page with the warning-proviso "a stolen copyright".

A unique signed copy of a publishing oddity.

Author's first book. A quasi-autobiographical novel, Williwaw was written at the age of 19 while Vidal was first mate of a U.S. Army freight supply ship stationed in the Aleutian Islands.