Free Fall
By William Golding
 
First edition, first impression: London: Faber and Faber, 1959. Signed by the author to the front endpaper.
 
Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With the original pictorial dust jacket designed by Anthony Gross, priced 15s.
 
A very good copy. The binding is firm and the cloth remains bright. To the front free endpaper, there is a contemporary previous owner inscription: Bower, Elmshead, Christmas ’59. A small, discreet bookseller label is located at the bottom corner of the front paste-down. There is some spotting to the edges of the page block and, far more faintly, to the opening and closing couple of leaves; the contents are otherwise clean.
 
The dust jacket is in excellent condition, appearing very crisp and bright. There are a few faint spots visible to the verso, though these do not show through to the front; an uncommonly fresh example of Gross’s intricate design.
 
Free Fall is William Golding’s fourth novel and represents a shift toward a more traditional, albeit fragmented, first-person narrative following the experimental prose of his earlier works. Golding, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 and the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage (1980), used this novel to explore the tension between the rational, scientific world and the world of spiritual experience.