A Very Private Life

A Very Private Life is Michael Frayn's third novel, written as a dystopian fairy tale in the future tense. In a far-future world, the privileged class lives entirely indoors in sealed houses, medicated for contentment and connected to the outside world only through screens and tubes. Uncumber, a young woman of this indoor class, becomes curious about the world outside and eventually breaks out of her sealed existence to find a man she has become attached to through the holoscreen. What she discovers outside is the other half of the world's population, the ones who build the walls, install the wires, and do the physical work that supports indoor life. Frayn conceived the novel after walking through eerily empty residential streets in Phoenix, Arizona in 1966 and sensing that voluntary isolation was the direction modern life was heading

Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, boards, spine stamped in gilt. London: Collins, 1968. #10648.
Overall, near fine in near fine dust jacket. There are a few pages that have minor soft creases or wrinkling to upper corner, otherwise the book is nearly fine. Jacket has some toning inside and minor creases to rear panel, but otherwise, also nearly fine.