Published by Faber & Faber, London; 1977. First edition. 127pp. 8vo. Condition: Near Fine/Near Fine.
Bound in original blue cloth boards, with title in red to spine. The binding is square and tight and in excellent condition, with just a touch of sunning to the top edge and one small faint mark to the bottom corner of the front board. Inside, the pages are clean and bright with just a little toning. There is a neat gift inscription to the front pastedown.
The book is housed in its original dust jacket. Other than a little darkening to the top edge and spine, and some fading to the spine, the jacket is in very smart condition indeed. Jacket has been price clipped. Duo-tone photograph of author to rear panel and blue and red lettering to front and spine.
Abba Abba was Burgess's 22nd novel. It is made up of two parts: the first is focussed on the final months of the life of John Keats and his encounters with poet Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli. The second presents the English translation of a sequence of blasphemous sonnets by Belli. The title refers to the enclosed rhyme scheme typically used by both Keats and Belli. It can also refer to Christ's prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, prior to his agony, as "Abba" means "father". It is the epitaph on Burgess's marble memorial stone, in Monte Carlo.