The Green Fool. London: Martin Brian & O’Keefe, 1971. Second Edition. Pp, 350. Neat ownership inscription to endpaper, otherwise a nice bright copy. A good clean copy in dust jacket.

First published by Michael Joseph in 1938, the first issue was taken out of publication due to a libel action against the publisher by St. John Gogarty & reissued with the offending paragraph removed. 

The well-known Irish poet, author & politician -Oliver St. John Gogarty (who was the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’) claimed that he was libeled by a passage on page 300. Gogarty took exception to the original published version: “I mistook Gogarty’s white-robed maid for his wife – or his mistress. I expected every poet to have a spare wife.” The withdrawn copies were then reissued with a cancel page amending the text to: “I mistook Gogarty’s white-robed maid for his wife – not knowing whether he had a wife or not.”

‘The Green Fool paints an entirely fascinating picture of the adolescence of a young man in a patriarchal society in Ireland, capturing the very essence of Irish rural life.’