The Doctor is Sick by Anthony Burgess 1st / 1st 1960

First edition and first print published by Heinemann in 1960.  It is in very good ++ condition. The wrapper is very complete with no chips or tears. It has some browning to the spine and edges. There is minor rubbing to the spine ends and corner tips. It is not price clipped showing the correct price of 16s. The boards have a small amount of handling wear and one of the corners is bumped. The pages have no foxing or previous owner's ink Overall a very good ++ copy.
 
According to the author's autobiography, Burgess composed the book in just six weeks. He wrote it after his return to England from Malaya in a burst of literary activity that also produced Devil of a State, A Clockwork Orange, The Right to an Answer and several other works. Shortly before he wrote The Doctor Is Sick Burgess suffered an mental breakdown that ended his career as a teacher in Malaya. He came back to Britain convinced that he had a brain tumour. He based some of the events in this novel on his experience of confinement in the Neurological Institute in London.The character Doctor Railton, who is put in charge of Edwin's case, is a fictionalised version of Sir Roger Bannister, who performed neurological tests on Burgess.