“YOU’LL GO TO BORSTAL, AND YOU’LL ’AVE A KIP-IN TIME, WITH FOOTBALL, CONCERTS, SWIMMING…”

BEHAN, Brendan. Borstal Boy. London: Hutchinson of London, (1958). Octavo, original purple cloth, original dust jacket. $500.

First edition of this autobiographical novel about a Irish teenager’s struggle to face his own identity and survive imprisonment in an English reform institution, the basis for the Tony Award-winning play and the critically acclaimed film.

Playwright and novelist Brendan Behan based this novel on the experiences he had as a teenager after being arrested smuggling bomb materials into Liverpool for the IRA. Borstal Boy chronicles his time in juvenile detention and his time both among the prisoners and with the guards. After Behan’s untimely death from alcoholism, the book was adapted into a play that debuted at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 1967 and went on to win a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1970 and a Tony Award that same year. An independent film followed in 2000 and was noted for its faithful adaptation of the original book.

Book near-fine, with a few spots of foxing to interior and spine leaning slightly. Dust jacket near-fine, with scattered faint foxing and tape repairs to spine ends including one to recto. An attractive copy.