MARK HADDON (b.1962)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London: Jonathan Cape, 2003.
First edition of a unique mystery novel, copiously annotated and illustrated by the author. Told from the perspective of Christopher Boone, a 15-year-old boy on the autistic spectrum, this award-winning detective tale about a dead dog was adapted into a successful stage production which premiered at the National Theatre in 2012. The author’s interventions across 76 pages are vivid, inventive, humorous, and generous in number and in spirit. His notes, in ink or coloured pencils, wind around the margins like fireworks. A series of original colour-pencil drawings and supplementary printed illustrations create a visual accompaniment to the novel – more akin to a medieval Book of Hours than a modern first edition. Haddon includes a copy of a letter written to a reader’s local MP shortly after the work’s publication, decrying the instances of profanity that occur in this novel meant for children. In a separate marginal note, he explains that the work has frequently been banned for this very reason, but that such instances have brought about necessary conversations about the wider questions of censorship in literature.

Octavo. Original black cloth, gilt lettering to spine, pictorial dust jacket (faint wear at corners).

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