The Hard Life. An Exegesis of Squalor. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1961. First Edition. Maroon cloth boards, in pictorial dust jacket designed by Sean O’Sullivan. Neat gift inscription to endpaper. A nice bright copy.

Flann O’Brien’s third published novel, preceded by ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ and the Irish-language ‘An Béal Bocht’.

Its printed dedication is to Graham Greene:

‘whose own forms of gloom I admire, this misterpiece’

Whose praise, at length, adorned the dust jacket of his debut (At Swim) and is also cited at the opening of the blurb in this edition..