LONDON: Secker & Warburg, 1963. First UK Edition, preceding both the Canadian and American publication. 223pp. Hardcover:  NEAR FINE. Dust Wrapper: NEAR FINE. Book has a gentle push at the top of the spine and a few small pencils mark on the front paste-down. Wrapper is price-clipped; some modest discoloration and spotting.

In this, his much-loved first novel, Leonard Cohen etches the youth and early manhood of Lawrence Breavman, the only son of wealthy Jewish parents in Montreal. “In the 1960s Leonard Cohen was just about the coolest literary figure around. A young poet who lived the Bohemian lifestyle associated with the poets of popular fiction, who spoke like a man of profound mysteries, who wrote both hopefully and cynically of love and of the mystical in the mundane. And a folksinger to boot. You know how people were always saying Bob Dylan was the poet of pop music? Well, Leonard Cohen was a singer-songwriter in the same class who really was a poet”. Editoreric.com.