ANAND, Mulk Raj (1905-2004). Untouchable ... With a Preface by E. M. Forster. London: Wishart Books, 1835. 8vo (185 x 120mm). Half title (some browning to edges of half title, some staining to half title, title and last few leaves). Original khaki cloth, spine lettered in white, dust-jacket designed by John Farleigh with price of "7/6 net" unclipped (some fading to lettering on backstrip of jacket, edges of backstrip a little frayed). Provenance: contemporary Christmas card, titled "The Cloth Merchant", signed by [?]L. E. Havard loosely-inserted. FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, the front free endpaper inscribed, "With kindly wishes, from Mulk Raj Anand, Daily Worker Bazaar, 18/12/37." "Anand made his name with the novel Untouchable (1935), which recounts a day in the life of a street sweeper, roused to hopes of a classless and casteless society by Gandhi (who advised Anand on the manuscript of the work)" (The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. by Margaret Drabble, 1985). The dust-jacket of the book is illustrated in its modern protective transparent wrapper which, in light of its exceptionally good condition, we were reluctant to remove for fear of damaging it. RARE.
