EXTREMELY RARE — The Divine and the Decay by Bill Hopkins, 1957 First Printing. In near perfect condition with no breaks, tears, or marks on the covers, spine, or pages. It looks like it was never read. See all photos to see the great condition of this book. This is likely to be the only copy of this version in the United States (see below).

Bill Hopkins was a member of the “Angry Young Men” in 1950s England. He and his colleagues had strong opinions of British politics and expressed this in their works. This first book from Hopkins was published in 1957, but received harsh criticism and was recalled by the publisher who was reported to have destroyed all the copies that could be found. I can only find one other physical copy of this book in my searches and that one is in England. This novel was later retitled as “The Leap!” in 1984 and released by the same publisher, MacGibbon & Kee of London.

Hopkins only wrote one other novel, but the manuscript was lost in a fire. Hopkins chose not to rewrite that story or any other novel. He did write essays and contributed to an anthology. He died in 2011.

I tried to find another copy of this 1957 edition, but only saw the one previously mentioned selling for over $1,000 in England. I believe this copy was brought to the United States by his sister who moved from England to the San Francisco area where I bought it.

This is a book for a serious collector.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Hopkins_(novelist)