One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Kesey, Ken

8vo, 8 x 5 1/2 inches (203 x 136 mm); (8), 311 pp.; pages clean and unmarked and very lightly toned. Publisher's green cloth with orange title on spine; spine is a touch color faded compared to the front and back panels, and the bottom outside corner of back cover has 1/4 inch water stain; lettering on the spine is not rubbed, which is rare. This is a first state of the first edition, with "That fool Red Cross Woman" on page 9, and "Red Cross woman named Gwen-doe-lin, with the blond hair the patients are always arguing about" on the top of page 86 as called for. Those passages were removed in subsequent printings following a court case which Kesey lost. The dust jacket is second state, also with the Paul Bacon design but missing the Jack Kerouac blurb that was in the first state jacket; price clipped. A scarce landmark book in superb condition of one of the most important and influential American books of the 20th century, and defining novel of the counter-culture movement. The work inspired the Broadway adaptation of the following and later for cinema by Milo Forman in 1975 starring Jack Nicholson. The film won five Oscars. First edition of the author's debut novel, "a brilliant parable of the individual fighting against an oppressive, conformist society. in the American literary tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman in advocating self-reliance and personal sovereignty" (ANB).