One
First edition, 1953
One (1953) by David Karp is set in a future state that has eliminated crime, poverty, and war, and governs with the cheerful efficiency of a well-run institution. There is no overt violence, no Big Brother, no visible terror apparatus. Citizens enjoy material comfort and full employment. The price is total conformity, enforced through a pervasive network of informants, one of whom is the novel's protagonist, Professor Burden, an English professor who has spent a decade filing daily reports on his colleagues' remarks and attitudes. When the Department of Internal Examination summons Burden, he assumes he is being considered for recognition. He is not.
What distinguishes One from the more familiar dystopian models is Burden's genuine belief in the system he serves. He is not a reluctant collaborator; he is a convinced one, and the novel's unsettling quality comes from watching that conviction worked over from the inside. Cyril Connolly, reviewing it in The Sunday Times, wrote that the publishers had bracketed it with Darkness at Noon, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Brave New World, which he had at first thought presumptuous, and then, after reading it, was inclined to agree. Karp published the novel the same year as Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and the McCarthyite undertow is unmistakable, the more so because Karp's future state bears a deliberate resemblance to 1950s America rather than to Soviet Russia.
This first edition has "Oct. 19 1953" stamped on the front flyleaf. While publishers occasionally stamped review copies this way, the actual publication date was October 11, 1953.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, quarter cloth with paper-covered boards. New York: Vanguard Press, 1953. #10218.
The book is near fine with tiny corner bump. The dust jacket has two small chips, one at crown of spine near the fold, and the other along the upper right corner fold on the front cover. Otherwise, a bright and attractive copy with minimal wear for its age.
What distinguishes One from the more familiar dystopian models is Burden's genuine belief in the system he serves. He is not a reluctant collaborator; he is a convinced one, and the novel's unsettling quality comes from watching that conviction worked over from the inside. Cyril Connolly, reviewing it in The Sunday Times, wrote that the publishers had bracketed it with Darkness at Noon, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Brave New World, which he had at first thought presumptuous, and then, after reading it, was inclined to agree. Karp published the novel the same year as Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and the McCarthyite undertow is unmistakable, the more so because Karp's future state bears a deliberate resemblance to 1950s America rather than to Soviet Russia.
This first edition has "Oct. 19 1953" stamped on the front flyleaf. While publishers occasionally stamped review copies this way, the actual publication date was October 11, 1953.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, quarter cloth with paper-covered boards. New York: Vanguard Press, 1953. #10218.
The book is near fine with tiny corner bump. The dust jacket has two small chips, one at crown of spine near the fold, and the other along the upper right corner fold on the front cover. Otherwise, a bright and attractive copy with minimal wear for its age.