Grimus

First edition. Crown 8vo. 319pp. Purple cloth lettered in silver to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper (priced '£3.50 net' to front flap). Precedes the US issue by 4 years.

Faint spotting to top edge, trace of offsetting to free endpapers, else an exceptionally fine copy, displaying none of the discolouration to dustjacket spine this title is wont to.

Author's debut novel which received a mixed reception but attracted rave reviews from both Brian Aldiss and Ursula Le Guin. After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality, a young Indian wanders the 7 seas for 777 years, world-wearily coming to rest on a mystical island seeking to regain his mortality. A sci-fi hybrid of religious myth and literary pastiche, introducing in raw form many of the subsequent themes Rushdie developed in his writing, such as cultural displacement and an evolving identity. "[S]cience fiction [which] pushes the boundaries of the form outward." –LA Times