The Green Fool. London: Michael Joseph, 1938. First Edition, Second Issue. Pp, 350. Original green cloth, title lettered in silver within a lined boarder to head of spine, publisher’s name and device to tail; fading to spine and a few pale stains to covers, neat ownership name to endpaper, contents bright and clean.

The well-known Irish poet, author & politician -Oliver St. John Gogarty (who was the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’) -caused the first issue to be suppressed & withdrawn from sale when he claimed that he was libeled by a passage on page 300.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 The withdrawn copies were then reissued with a cancel page amending the text to: “I mistook Gogarty’s white-robed maid for his wife – not knowing whether he had a wife or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.’