London: Macmillan, 1984. First Edition. 184pp. Hardcover: FINE. Dust Wrapper: FINE.

From the wrapper: 'The Wasp Factory is a work of horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all. A novel of extraordinary originality, imagination and comic ferocity.' A 1997 poll of over 25 000 readers of The Independent listed The Was Factory as one of the top 100 books of the 20th Century.