Description
Boldly inscribed in blue ink by Behan across the front free endpaper:
“Alice Fay [sic.]
love from
Brendan Behan
16.X.’58”
The recipient was Alice Faye (1915–1998), the celebrated American actress and singer and one of the foremost stars of Hollywood’s golden age. Born Alice Jeanne Leppert, Faye became one of 20th Century-Fox’s most successful musical stars and was ranked among Hollywood’s ten leading box-office attractions by 1939.
Her films include ‘In Old Chicago’, ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’, ‘Rose of Washington Square’, ‘The Gang’s All Here’ and ‘Hello, Frisco, Hello’, in which she introduced the Academy Award-winning song “You’ll Never Know.” She later starred alongside her husband, bandleader and comedian Phil Harris, in the long-running *Phil Harris–Alice Faye Show*. Faye was particularly popular with British audiences.
The inscription is dated 16 October 1958, apparently two days before the book’s official publication. It therefore represents an unusually early copy, almost certainly one of the first bound examples available to Behan.
A very good copy in a very good dust wrapper, showing some toning and rubbing, minor chipping and several short closed tears to the extremities. The inscription remains bold and clear to the front endpaper.
Behan’s autobiographical masterpiece recounts his arrest in Liverpool at the age of sixteen while carrying explosives for the IRA, followed by his imprisonment and confinement in an English borstal. Written with exuberant humour, wonderfully observed dialogue and considerable humanity, it traces his gradual movement away from sectarian certainty as he discovers friendship and solidarity among his English fellow prisoners.
Published to widespread acclaim and subsequently banned in Ireland, *Borstal Boy* established Behan internationally and remains one of the defining works of modern Irish literature. A particularly desirable association copy, inscribed immediately before publication to one of Hollywood’s best-known musical stars.
