THE ADVENTURES OF MAUD NOAKES: An Autobiographical Account by the Authoress of the Noakes Report

New York: New Directions, 1961. First printing. Very good + in a very good + jacket.. First edition, review copy, of this New Directions novel famous for its jacket design by Andy Warhol, who modeled the lettering of the title after his mother's. This was the first novel by Neame, purportedly "edited by" him and written by the eponymous main character. Warhol's design features a head stylized to resemble an African mask, stamped in repeating rows across the front and back cover, with a red-haired female figure in the center. Of his cover design, Warhol wrote in his diary: "And one guy said he had a book jacket that I'd done or a book called the Adventures of...somebody, I forget. A New Directions book [...] It was a good all-over pattern of African masks and my mother's writing, but they ruined it by making me draw a cutesy lady on it. For 'commercial appeal.' I had handed it in without it and then they told me to add this lady in" (quoted in "Reading Andy Warhol," p. 40).
One of Warhol's most recognizable book designs - and one of his last before becoming famous - prefiguring his later iconic use of repetition in his pop paintings. 8'' x 5.25''. Original quarter black cloth, red paper boards. In original unclipped ($3.75) pictorial dust jacket designed by Andy Warhol. 159, [1] pages. Review slip from New Directions, with original price and publication date, laid in. Very lightly worn at spine ends and corners. Red on spine faded. Interior bright and clean.