WATERHOUSE, Keith

Billy Liar

London: Michael Joseph, 1959. Item #06571

The Birth of Billy Fisher - A Defining Voice of Postwar British Fiction
A Sharp Comic Portrait of Fantasy and Frustration in 1950s England

WATERHOUSE, Keith. Billy Liar. London: Michael Joseph, [1959].

First edition. Octavo (7 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches; 197 x 130 mm.). [2], [1–2], 3–190, [1], [1, blank] pp.

Publisher’s burgundy cloth over boards, spine lettered in gilt. A near fine copy in an equally near fine dust jacket.

The first edition of Billy Liar, the breakthrough novel by Keith Waterhouse that helped define the tone of late 1950s British fiction. Set in a drab Yorkshire town, the novel follows the irrepressible Billy Fisher, a young clerk whose elaborate fantasies and compulsive lies provide both escape from, and commentary on, the limitations of his everyday life.

Blending sharp social observation with biting humor, Billy Liar captures the disillusionment and restless imagination of a generation caught between postwar austerity and the promise of change. Waterhouse’s prose is brisk and vividly comic, yet undercut by an acute awareness of missed opportunities and emotional immaturity.

The novel’s success led to its celebrated stage adaptation and the classic 1963 film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie, securing Billy Fisher’s place as one of the iconic anti-heroes of modern British literature.

A particularly fresh copy of an increasingly collectible modern first—rarely encountered in such well-preserved condition with the dust jacket unfaded.

Price: $850.00