Sometime Never. by DAHL, Roald - 1949

Published by Collins 1949. Hard Cover. First Edition. Condition: Good. Light edgewear and a few scuff marks. First endpaper missing. Clean copy. No Jacket. .

New York: Scribner's, 1948. Hardcover. 244p., foreword, very good first edition with Scribner's A, red cloth boards in unclipped but heavily chipped and worn dust jacket. Dahl's first novel for adults, third book. A tale of the Battle of Britain as three RAF pilots battle the original rulers of Earth, Gremlins. Early use of nuclear warfare in a novel. The book has not been reprinted in English.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Very Good- in Good+ dust jacket. 1948. First US Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Red cloth with trace wear, slightly bumped spine ends and sharp corners. Top of text block lightly foxed. Jacket in archival plastic protector is moderately edgeworn, toned and rubbed; several chips/tears <1 1/8" with related creasing; spine lightly sunned; flaps not clipped. Binding sound, text clean. Interior lightly toned, with light foxing to eps. No ownership marks, stickers or stamps. Not ex-library. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 244 pages .

SOME TIME NEVER, Scribners, 1948, first edition, lower fore edge corner tips gently bumped, evidence of a faint moisture stain to the upper right corner of the rear cover with some minor bleed through to the r.p.d., some off-setting to the fore edge of the paste-downs no doubt due to the dust-wrapper flaps, else a tight, bright vg+ copy in vg color pictorial dust-wrapper save with some light wear and tear and modest dust-soiling to the rear dust-wrapper panel. 

London: Collins, 1949 8vo. original mauve cloth gilt (rubbed & bumped, wear cloth at extremities and spine, a few slight marks to outer leaves, small nick to FFE, else clean internally; lacks dustwrapper). pp. 256 (last blank). A good reading copy of the UK first edition. The author's first novel for adults.. First UK. Hard Cover. G+/No Jacket.

London: Collins,, 1949. First UK edition, first impression. The title was first published the previous year in the US, and is notable as the first book about nuclear war to be published there after the bombing of Hiroshima. The final chapter is slightly rewritten and expanded in the UK edition. Dahl would later suppress the novel. Jeremy Treglown notes that "Dahl may... have had Tolkien in mind in writing the story... there are echoes too of Lewis Carroll's mixture of the irrational and the commonsensical. But these elements are combined with the realism of his tougher war stories". Dahl's biographer also suggests that the Leader of the Gremlins in the novel "is a prototype of Mr Willy Wonka" (Treglown, p. 82). Octavo. Original purple cloth, spine lettered in gilt, cream endpapers, lower edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Extremities a little bumped, crease to front free endpaper, minor foxing to endpapers; unclipped jacket worn with loss to head and foot of spine, closed tear to rear panel, spine… Read More

New York: Charles A. Scribner's Sons, 1948. Hardcover. Fine/Good. First American edition. Fine in very good dust jacket with a chip and a couple tears on the front panel, and slight sunning at the spine. The author's third book, and first novel, in which Gremlin's inherit the Earth after WWII.

New: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 12mo - over 6¾ - 7¾" tall. Full red cloth. 244 pp. White spotting to fore edges, some small spots of wear to spine and tail edges of boards. Dust jacket is rubbed, damp stained to fore edges, a few small chips and short tears, small perforations to spine. Some Time Never is a blend of superbly written realism and outrageous fantasy, with an almost Swiftian quality in its savage wit and subtle humor. It is the story of the hitherto little-known Gremlins. It is a moreover a piercing commentary on Man and the qualities in Man which are leading him to his destruction.

London: Collins, 1949. First printing. Near fine in very good plus jacket.. First UK edition of Dahl's first adult novel, a gruesome apocalyptic fantasy on the emergence of Gremlins in the wake of humanity's expected self-annihilation via chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare. 7.5'' x 5''. Original fuschia cloth. In original unclipped (8s. 6d.) dust jacket by Stephen Russ. 255, [1] pages. Light edgewear to boards, minor foxing to endpapers and jacket. Sun and light chipping to jacket spine.

London: Collins,, 1949. The author's first novel which he later suppressed First UK edition, first impression, signed by the author on the front free endpaper. The book was first published the previous year in the US, and is notable as the first book about nuclear war to be published there after the bombing of Hiroshima. The final chapter is slightly rewritten and expanded in the UK edition. Jeremy Treglown notes that "Dahl may... have had Tolkien in mind in writing the story... there are echoes too of Lewis Carroll's mixture of the irrational and the commonsensical. But these elements are combined with the realism of his tougher war stories". Treglown also suggests that the Leader of the Gremlins in the novel "is a prototype of Mr Willy Wonka". Octavo. Original purple cloth, spine lettered in gilt, cream endpapers, lower edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Contemporary ownership signature to front free endpaper. A crisp copy, spine slightly bumped, minor crease to spine, some foxing; extremities of… Read More