KEANE, John, B. Self-Portrait (First edition)

Cork: The Mercier Press, 1964. Illustrated. First edition. pp. 106. Brown cloth, title in gilt on spine. In original pictorial dust jacket. A little edge-worn, but overall very good.

Keane’s frank and witty autobiography, issued only two years after the triumph of Sive, offers a colourful account of his Kerry upbringing, struggles, and literary rise. The dedication is to his lifelong friend Dickeen Roche, a local Listowel character who inspired figures in Keane’s plays. This copy is of particular interest: inscribed by Keane in the year of his death (2002), it displays his characteristic humour and warmth, mingling personal friendship with the comic self-awareness that made him a national treasure. A rare survival in jacket, much more so inscribed. Copies of the first edition of Self-Portrait are already scarce; association copies signed in Keane’s final years are of considerable rarity and significance.

[L3 8D]