The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer 1948 - Rinehart and Company, New York Toronto - First Edition First edition of Mailer’s gritty masterpiece, penned at the age of 25 and based on his own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two. Scarce in such nice condition due to the notoriously delicate black dust jacket.

‘Virtually a Kinsey Report on the sexual behavior of the GI. Its style is an almost pure Army billingsgate that will offend many readers, although in no sense is it exaggerated: Mr. Mailer's soldiers are real persons, speaking the vernacular of human bitterness and agony. It gives off a skyglow that is quite faithful to the spectrum of battle, and exposes the blood, if not always the guts, of war.’ -
New York Times 1948
  ‘Many consider The Naked and the Dead to be the greatest combat novel ever written by an American.’ - NYT later review.

‘The narrative presents, with great accuracy and power, the agony of the American troops in the Pacific campaign. It remains Mailer's best, and certainly the best war novel to emerge from the United States’ – Anthony Burgess.

Norman Mailer (1923-2007) studied aeronautical engineering at Harvard and then became a Sergeant in the US Army serving in the South Pacific. He was discharged in 1946 and enrolled in the Sorbonne.
The Naked and the Dead was finished in fifteen months, and was received with almost unanimous critical acclaim making the twenty five year old Mailer world famous.

Mailer, twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, has produced a vast body of fictional and non-fictional novels, plays and screenplays, as well as producing or directing plays and films. In his biographical work on Marilyn Monroe he stated that she was murdered by FBI and CIA agents who resented her affair with Robert Kennedy. He spearheaded a campaign to release convicted killer Jack Abbot, who then committed murder within weeks of release. He has been married six times and has nine children. He ran for Mayor of New York in 1969, two years after being arrested for protesting the Vietnam war.

Reference: Anthony Burgess,
Ninety-Nine Novels, 1984, 42-43.

First edition, first printing with publisher's circled "R" on the copyright page. First issue jacket with description provided by Stanley Rinehart on front and rear flaps (second issue provided book reviews by various newspapers).

Thick octavo (book size 21.6x14.7cm), pp. [8] 721 [7]. In publisher’s black cloth, spine lettered and ruled in white. Dust jacket priced ‘$4.00’ to upper corner of front flap.
  Condition: Near fine, wear to corners and edges, offsetting to front endpapers, white lettering to spine is clear and unrubbed, in very good dust jacket, unequal toning to rear panel and front flaplight wear along spine folds, and to corners.   Ref: 111722   Price: HK$ 8,500