Signed
The Atrocity Exhibition
Signed British first, with autographed postcard
Published in 1970 by Jonathan Cape, The Atrocity Exhibition is J.G. Ballard’s most experimental and controversial work. Composed of “condensed novels” rather than a continuous narrative, it presents a psychological dystopia in which media imagery and the human unconscious collapse into a single terrain. The protagonist, who shifts names from Talbot to Traven to Travis, is a doctor at a mental hospital who attempts to make sense of what Ballard termed the “death of affect” by restaging public tragedies.
The volume includes the essay “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan,” a key text in Ballard’s examination of how political power and violence become sexualized through mass media. Throughout the book, the protagonist obsessively rehearses the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the death of Marilyn Monroe, seeking the erotic logic latent in car crashes, celebrity imagery, and nuclear weaponry. The work was considered so disturbing that Nelson Doubleday ordered the destruction of the entire 1970 American print run prior to release.
Signed book and postcard. This copy is signed by Ballard on the title page. Laid in is a handwritten postcard from the author (dated May 2, 1991) addressed to a collector. In the note, Ballard clarifies the bibliography of his early first editions (specifically the UK hardcover of The Drowned World versus US paperbacks) and offers a rare critique of the art design for the illustrated edition of The Atrocity Exhibition, noting that while he admired the publishing effort, he disliked the cover art.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, black cloth with gilt lettering on spine. London: Jonathan Cape, 1970. ISBN: 0224618385. #10556.
Minor ding to rear panel of boards, else fine in near fine dust jacket which has usual fading to spine.
The volume includes the essay “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan,” a key text in Ballard’s examination of how political power and violence become sexualized through mass media. Throughout the book, the protagonist obsessively rehearses the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the death of Marilyn Monroe, seeking the erotic logic latent in car crashes, celebrity imagery, and nuclear weaponry. The work was considered so disturbing that Nelson Doubleday ordered the destruction of the entire 1970 American print run prior to release.
Signed book and postcard. This copy is signed by Ballard on the title page. Laid in is a handwritten postcard from the author (dated May 2, 1991) addressed to a collector. In the note, Ballard clarifies the bibliography of his early first editions (specifically the UK hardcover of The Drowned World versus US paperbacks) and offers a rare critique of the art design for the illustrated edition of The Atrocity Exhibition, noting that while he admired the publishing effort, he disliked the cover art.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, black cloth with gilt lettering on spine. London: Jonathan Cape, 1970. ISBN: 0224618385. #10556.
Minor ding to rear panel of boards, else fine in near fine dust jacket which has usual fading to spine.
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