SOMETIME NEVER: A Fable for Supermen by Dahl, Roald - 1949

London: Collins, 1949. First Edition. Good. Hardcover : pp. [4] 255 [256] : magenta cloth covered boards : tail of block untrimmed. Spine quite sunned; head of spine pushed and a little nicked; red ink ''C'' to front paste-down; block edges tanned, marked and foxed; foxing to endpapers and occasionally throughout; occasional smudge. Roald Dahl's first adult novel.

Published by Collins 1949. Hard Cover. First Edition. Condition: Good. Light edgewear and a few scuff marks. First endpaper missing. Clean copy. No Jacket. .

New York: Scribner's, 1948. Hardcover. 244p., foreword, very good first edition with Scribner's A, red cloth boards in unclipped but heavily chipped and worn dust jacket. Dahl's first novel for adults, third book. A tale of the Battle of Britain as three RAF pilots battle the original rulers of Earth, Gremlins. Early use of nuclear warfare in a novel. The book has not been reprinted in English.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Very Good- in Good+ dust jacket. 1948. First US Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Red cloth with trace wear, slightly bumped spine ends and sharp corners. Top of text block lightly foxed. Unclipped DJ protected in mylar is moderately edgeworn, toned and rubbed, several chips/tears <1 1/8" with related creasing, spine lightly faded. Solid binding and clean text. Interior lightly browned, with light foxing to eps. No ownership marks, ex-lib marks, stamps or stickers. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 244 pages .

SOME TIME NEVER, Scribners, 1948, first edition, lower fore edge corner tips gently bumped, evidence of a faint moisture stain to the upper right corner of the rear cover with some minor bleed through to the r.p.d., some off-setting to the fore edge of the paste-downs no doubt due to the dust-wrapper flaps, else a tight, bright vg+ copy in vg color pictorial dust-wrapper save with some light wear and tear and modest dust-soiling to the rear dust-wrapper panel. 

London: Collins, 1949 8vo. original mauve cloth gilt (rubbed & bumped, wear cloth at extremities and spine, a few slight marks to outer leaves, small nick to FFE, else clean internally; lacks dustwrapper). pp. 256 (last blank). A good reading copy of the UK first edition. The author's first novel for adults.. First UK. Hard Cover. G+/No Jacket.

London: Collins,, 1949. First UK edition, first impression. The title was first published the previous year in the US, and is notable as the first book about nuclear war to be published there after the bombing of Hiroshima. The final chapter is slightly rewritten and expanded in the UK edition. Dahl would later suppress the novel. Jeremy Treglown notes that "Dahl may... have had Tolkien in mind in writing the story... there are echoes too of Lewis Carroll's mixture of the irrational and the commonsensical. But these elements are combined with the realism of his tougher war stories". Dahl's biographer also suggests that the Leader of the Gremlins in the novel "is a prototype of Mr Willy Wonka" (Treglown, p. 82). Octavo. Original purple cloth, spine lettered in gilt, cream endpapers, lower edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Extremities a little bumped, crease to front free endpaper, minor foxing to endpapers; unclipped jacket worn with loss to head and foot of spine, closed tear to rear panel, spine… Read More

New York: Charles A. Scribner's Sons, 1948. Hardcover. Fine/Good. First American edition. Fine in very good dust jacket with a chip and a couple tears on the front panel, and slight sunning at the spine. The author's third book, and first novel, in which Gremlin's inherit the Earth after WWII.

New: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 12mo - over 6¾ - 7¾" tall. Full red cloth. 244 pp. White spotting to fore edges, some small spots of wear to spine and tail edges of boards. Dust jacket is rubbed, damp stained to fore edges, a few small chips and short tears, small perforations to spine. Some Time Never is a blend of superbly written realism and outrageous fantasy, with an almost Swiftian quality in its savage wit and subtle humor. It is the story of the hitherto little-known Gremlins. It is a moreover a piercing commentary on Man and the qualities in Man which are leading him to his destruction.

First U.S. edtion, in Very Good + condition. Signed and inscribed in bold black ink by author on half title page. Very good dust jacket with a tiny chip on back cover top of spine, rubbing/smudging of the "Charles Scribner's Sons, New York" stamp on lower back cover, and 2 tiny spots on front cover. Colors bright, book overall is clean and tight. The author's third book, and first novel.