Borstal Boy. New York: Knopf, 1959. First American Edition. Publisher’s blue cloth boards, with titles in silver to upper cover & spine, in pictorial dust jacket. A fine bright copy.

Presentation copy, inscribed by Behan on front free endpaper: “For Bill, Looking forward to many, more fruitful conversion, Brendan 14 ix 60″‘

Behan arrived in New York on the 2nd September 1960 for the Broadway debut of his play ‘The Hostage.’ The present volume is presumably inscribed to one of the many journalists that interviewed him at the Algonquin Hotel during the first two weeks of his visit.

Regarded as Behan’s literary masterpiece this autobiographical novel is a vivid memoir of his time at Hollesley Bay Borstal, Suffolk, England.