The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney first edition 1955

London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955
 
8vo., red publisher’s boards lettered in black to backstrip; complete in the vibrant black, red and blue dust jacket featuring an illustration by Lowen (neatly price clipped); pp. [vi], 7-192; a couple of very small stains to boards; lightly compressed to spine tips; previous bookseller sticker to front paste-down; rear endpaper lightly offset; text minimally and evenly toned throughout; in the bright dust wrapper which is just slightly rubbed to extremities; very minimal fading to the red along the spine; one very small closed tear to the rear panel discretely repaired internally with tape; a beautiful copy, otherwise, of this classic thriller. 
 
First UK edition. 
 
The Body Snatchers was originally serialised in Collier's magazine in November–December 1954, and appeared in book form the following year. Set in Mill Valley, California, the story involves a plague of alien seed pods who infiltrate the small town, replacing sleeping human victims with perfect physical duplicates with one defect: they cannot reproduce, and live only five years. It was a profound message: like humans, the spores invade planets, exhaust resources, wipe out indigenous populations and destroy ecosystems, with survival the only goal. 
 
Upon publication, debates were sparked as to whether the novel satirised Communism, commented on the decline of civilization, or made reference to the conformity of US society at the time. The desire to look deeper into Finney’s motivations for writing the story likely stem from his early writings: his first article "Someone Who Knows Told Me …", (Cosmopolitan, 1943) was written in response to the Office of War Information's "Loose Lips Sink Ships" campaign, which sought to point out the dangers of careless remarks and how they could aid enemy agents, resulting in the death of US servicemen. This air of suspicion was no doubt influential in his later novels, although he himself claimed that the story should be viewed only as a work of fiction. A prolific writer of short stories, The Body Snatchers was his second novel, and his first foray into science fiction. He later achieved greater fame with Time and Again, which focused on the theme of time travel. 
 
The book has been adapted for film several times, the first as Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1956, and the last in 2007 as The Invasion starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. 
 
Seldom found in such superior condition.