My Brilliant Friend: Book One. Childhood, Adolescence [Signed, Limited]

London: Cuckoo Press, 2015. First hardcover edition. Hardcover. Fine. The first book in Elena Ferrante's worldwide bestselling series, the Neapolitan Quartet, published here in a stunningly beautiful signed, limited edition of 126 copies, comprising the entire first hardcover edition in English. Essentially, this edition offers the only obtainable signed books anywhere in the world by Ferrante. She has signed no other limited editions, nor has she ever done a book signing. Next to Richard Fariña, who died on the way home from his first book signing in 1966, signed Ferrante first editions may be the scarcest autographed modern first editions.

In the 21 January 2013 issue of the New Yorker magazine ("Women on the Verge") James Wood wrote, "Elena Ferrante, or 'Elena Ferrante,' is one of Italy's best-known least-known contemporary writers. She is the author of several remarkable, lucid, austerely honest novels... Compared with Ferrante, Thomas Pynchon is a publicity profligate. It's assumed that Elena Ferrante is not the author's real name.... What she looks like, what her real name is, when she was born, how she currently lives-these things are all unknown."

The Neapolitan novels tell the story of two lifelong women friends, beginning with their childhood in Naples, Italy, in the 1950s. My Brilliant Friend traces their story through adolescence, as Elena and Lila begin to find their place in the world and the often misogynist culture of the city. The books have touched the life of millions of readers around the world and have been adapted into many films and miniseries. Yet the identity of Elena Ferrante, from her first novel in 1991, has been a closely guarded secret. Not even her Italian publisher knows.

Typical of many books translated into English, My Brilliant Friend was published as a paperback original in the US, UK, and Australia. This lovely handbound limited edition from the press of John Sandoe Books, an independent bookstore in London since 1957, is the first hardcover edition of any of the Neapolitan novels in English. While the folks at John Sandoe Books did not reveal the inner workings of how they convinced the elusive Ferrante to sign the limitation sheets, they did work closely with her British and Italian publishers to arrange it. John Sandoe was an early proponent of My Brilliant Friend and in the way of good independent booksellers, made it their biggest selling book of 2014 (retrieved from Sandoe Books' Facebook post dated September 8, 2015). Surely that helped convince Ferrante to do this edition.

This is one of 100 signed and numbered copies (there were also 26 lettered copies). The book was designed by John de Falbe & Hero von Friesen, beautifully printed by Anthony Eyre at The Letterpress of Cirencester,and handsewn and handbound at the Black Fox Bindery. The book is quarterbound in Japanese silk with Chiyogami blue and gold paper boards, two raised and tooled bands, and handsewn headbands. First hardcover edition in English. This is copy 22 of 126, signed by Ferrante on the limitation page. A fine copy in a fine slipcase.