SECONDS. New York: Pantheon Books A Division of Random House, [1963]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First edition. The story of a man caught up by a nameless organization that uses advanced managerial and technological methods to achieve its singular aim -- lifting the moral and physical barriers to personal liberty and self-indulgence. Brilliantly filmed by John Frankenheimer with Rock Hudson as the hapless victim of a shadowy organization which ultimately kills him and recycles his body parts. "Like David Ely's slender, nightmarish novel, SECONDS has a thinly science-fictional rationale, but it is actually an exercise in Kafkaesque horror ... Outstandingly photographed by James Wong Howe, extremely well played by the whole cast (the choice of Hudson as every man's self-image is inspired), and directed with the imaginative flair John Frankenheimer brought to The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and 99 and 44/100% Dead, SECONDS is perhaps the scariest movie of the 1960s." - Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, p. 374. Barron (ed), Fantasy and Horror (1999) 6-125. Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights, p. 235. Reginald 37728. Hubin (1994), p. 266. A fine copy in fine dust jacket with touch of wear at upper spine end. (#155511).
Price: $750.00
First printing so stated on copyright page.