The Inheritors

First edition, first impression. London: Faber and Faber, 1955. Signed by the author to the front endpaper. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With the original pictorial dust jacket designed by Anthony Gross - who also designed the jacket for the author's debut, "Lord of the Flies" - priced 12s 6d. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with bright gilt to the spine. There is some spotting to the edges of the text block and to the first and final few leaves, with the contents otherwise clean and fresh. The dust jacket very good indeed, not price-clipped. There is a small nick to the foot of the upper panel spine hinge and some spotting to the verso; otherwise a very bright example. "The Inheritors" was William Golding's second novel and remained his personal favourite throughout his life. Published just a year after his debut, "Lord of the Flies", it is a haunting, deeply imaginative reconstruction of the final days of a group of Neanderthals as they encounter the "New People" - Homo sapiens. Golding, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983, used this work to subvert the optimistic Victorian view of human progress popularized by H. G. Wells, instead suggesting that the rise of modern man was predicated on a capacity for violence and deceit. The book's unique perspective has cemented its reputation as a significant work of anthropological, speculative twentieth-century fiction.