The Sea. Oxford: Joe McCann, 2005. First Edition, Limited Issue. Bound in dark blue cloth boards with printed paper title labels to the upper cover and spine. A fine, bright, and unblemished copy, issued without dust jacket as published.

Limited Edition, one of only 56 copies Signed by the Author, of which this is copy number 24 (of 46 copies bound in full cloth and numbered 1-46, with numbers 41-46 reserved for the author).

A beautiful copy of this landmark in modern Irish literature, being the special limited issue of the author’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel.

John Banville won the Man Booker Prize for that year, in a closely contested final round against Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go,’ with the chair of judges casting the deciding vote. It was Banville’s first Booker win, following his shortlisting in 1989 for ‘The Book of Evidence.’