London: Thames and Hudson, 1980. First edition. 367pp; color illus; notes at rear. 8vo; purple cloth; gilt spine titles; dust jacket. A touch of foxing to fore-edge of textblock top. Else near fine in very good jacket with light dulling to spine, a small closed tear at head of front panel.
First trade edition of this hugely influential exercise in palimpsestic erasure by English artist Tom Phillips (1937-2022). Taking as his source material a copy of W. H. Mallock's 1892 novel A Human Document, Phillips artfully altered the text through the application of various media, ultimately producing a unique poetic narrative through the processes of erasure and collage. Phillips began the project in 1966, and continued to make alterations to the book up until the publication of the "final" edition in 2016.
