Boy — James Hanley

James Hanley
Boriswood Limited · London · 1931
First Edition · First Printing
Signed Limited Complete Edition · No. 3 of 145

The Book:
The First Edition · First Printing of James Hanley’s Boy, in the extraordinarily scarce signed limited issue preserving the novel’s complete, unexpurgated text. Boriswood restricted this complete edition to 145 numbered copies printed on English handmade paper, signed by Hanley, and issued privately to subscribers, with fifteen additional copies reserved for presentation. The limitation page explicitly identifies it as “the only Complete Edition of BOY.” This is Copy No. 3, signed by James Hanley as part of the original issue. The contemporaneous edition offered to the broader public was substantially expurgated.

Condition:
Very Good. Original light-brown buckram binding remains structurally sound and complete, with widespread irregular darkening, mottled staining and spotting, particularly across the upper portions of the boards, together with spine darkening and light extremity wear. The handmade-paper interior is substantially cleaner and well preserved, with the title page, publication statement, limitation page, Hanley signature, and complete text intact. Original untrimmed/deckled edges retained. The clear protective covering is later preservation material and is not an original dust jacket.

Story Of The Book

Before Boy was prosecuted for obscenity, before its publisher was dragged into court, and before most readers could encounter Hanley’s novel without pieces missing, 145 subscribers were allowed to read it complete.

Published in 1931, Boy follows a working-class adolescent who escapes an abusive home only to encounter exploitation, sexual violence, disease, and death at sea. Its brutality presented Boriswood with a problem: how could the novel be published under Britain’s obscenity regime without exposing the press to prosecution?

The answer was to publish two versions of the same book.

The public received an expurgated text. But 145 subscribers received this: the complete novel, privately issued on handmade paper, individually numbered and signed by Hanley. This copy is No. 3.

The strategy ultimately failed. When a later inexpensive edition brought Boy before a much larger readership, Boriswood was prosecuted for obscene libel and pleaded guilty.

The public edition preserves what Boriswood believed it could safely print. This edition preserves what it believed had to be kept private.

Why It’s In The Collection

Boy belongs in Consigned to Darkness because the censorship story is physically built into the book itself.

This is not a later edition of a novel that happened to become controversial. Its handmade paper, signature, limitation, private subscriber distribution, and complete text were all components of a publishing strategy designed to protect Hanley’s work while restricting who could obtain it.

That makes this copy unusually revealing. Censorship did not simply determine whether Boy could be sold. It divided the novel into two physical forms: one text for the public and another for the privileged few permitted to read what Hanley actually wrote.

As No. 3 of 145 signed subscriber copies, this volume survives from the other side of that divide.

It preserves the complete Boy before censorship decided what everyone else was allowed to read.

Collection Categories: Censorship · Free Expression · Publication-Event Object · Sexuality & Obscenity · Working-Class Literature · Human Rights · Anti-Authoritarianism · Literature

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Authentication Evidence

• Title page identifies the work as Boy by James Hanley and bears the Boriswood Limited · London imprint.

• Publication statement explicitly reads “First published in 1931.”

• Publication statement identifies Gemmond Press, Harrington Road, London, as printer for Boriswood Limited.

• Limitation page explicitly identifies this issue as “the only Complete Edition of BOY.”

• Limitation page states that the complete edition was restricted to 145 copies on English hand-made paper, numbered and signed by the author and issued privately to subscribers only.

• Limitation page separately records 15 additional copies printed for presentation, distinguishing them from the 145 numbered subscriber copies.

• Present copy is hand-numbered “3.”

• James Hanley’s handwritten signature appears directly beneath the limitation statement in the position designated by the publisher.

• Hanley’s signature is therefore integral to the original issue rather than a later-added autograph.

• Original light-brown buckram binding remains present.

• Original English handmade-paper text block remains present with characteristic untrimmed/deckled edges.

• Physical construction corresponds to the documented signed limited complete issue.

• Complete unexpurgated text remains present.

• No evidence of a substituted limitation leaf, facsimile signature, modern reproduction, later-edition title page, or rebinding is observed.

• The 1931 publication statement and limitation leaf establish this as the First Edition · First Printing of the signed limited Complete Edition.

• Observable physical and bibliographic evidence authenticates this copy as No. 3 of 145 numbered and signed subscriber copies of the 1931 Complete Edition of Boy.