O’BRIEN, Edna: Girl (Signed limited edition)

London: Faber & Faber, 2019. First deluxe limited edition. .pp. 230. Octavo. Quarter green morocco over rose-pink cloth boards, gilt lettering to spine, with pale green endpapers. Housed in the original matching cloth slipcase. A finely printed edition by Faber & Faber, hand-bound by Smith Settle, Yeadon, West Yorkshire. A fine bright copy in fine slipcase.

This special issue was produced in a limitation of only 155 copies, of which 150 were for sale, signed by the author and specially bound. The present example is numbered 65 and signed by Edna O’Brien on the limitation page.

Edna O’Brien’s powerful novel Girl, inspired by the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria and widely regarded as one of the great final works of one of Ireland’s most celebrated literary voices. Winner of the David Cohen Prize for Literature and shortlisted for numerous international awards, Girl was praised for its lyrical intensity, moral courage, and extraordinary imaginative empathy.

A particularly attractive modern Irish literary collectible, combining the scarcity of a small limitation with the enduring significance of O’Brien’s later fiction. Signed limited editions of her major late works are increasingly sought after, particularly following the author’s death and the renewed international reassessment of her literary legacy.

Edna O’Brien (1930–2024) remains one of the most important Irish writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her works frequently explored themes of female identity, repression, exile, and freedom within Irish society. Girl marked a triumphant culmination of her long career and demonstrated her continued literary daring well into her late eighties.

[L3 6B]