THE GINGER MAN

Paris: Olympia Press, 1955. First edition and First issue, with "Special Volume / Francs: 1.500" on the rear wrapper panel. 8vo, in the publisher's original stiff green paper wrappers printed in black. 353 pp. A pleasing copy, the text very clean and bright, the wrappers clean and well preserved with just a little evidence of use primarily at the tips, the edges as typical, a bit mellowed, the head and tail of the spine each in nice condition. FIRST EDITION AND FIRST ISSUE OF DONLEAVY'S FIRST BOOK AND A MODERN LIBRARY "ONE HUNDRED BEST NOVELS OF THE 20TH CENTURY TITLE. The Olympia Press printed this as one of their green wrappered 'Traveller's Companion Series'. Like 'Lolita' published that same year, most of these books were at the time considered to be pornographic. Donleavy's book was immediately banned in both Ireland and the United States. The author was furious over it being published in this format. Mr. Donleavy later recalled, "I smashed my fist upon its green cover format, published as it was in the pseudonymous and pornographic Traveller’s Companion Series, and I declared aloud, 'If it's the last thing I ever do, I will avenge this book.'" This led to decades of lawsuits between Donleavy and the Olympia Press.
Donleavy described his novel, a bawdily adventurous story of 1940s university life in Dublin, as being "celebratory, boisterous and resolutely careless mayhem.” Its bohemian American-in-Ireland antihero, Sebastian Dangerfield, has been described as impulsive, destructive, wayward, cruel, a monster, a clown and a psychopath. It was both banned and burned in Ireland and when first published in the United States three years later an entire chapter was omitted.
In spite of it's rocky start the novel eventually won critical acclaim and would go on to sell millions of copies and secure Donleavy's name for all time.