The Naked Ape signed card Desmond Morris first edition 1967

London: Jonathan Cape, 1967
 
8vo., two-tone cloth, spine in green, lettered in gilt with publisher’s device to foot; upper edge stained red; textured endpapers; in the printed dust jacket (30s. net), with a photograph of the author to the lower panel; pp. [vi], 7-252, [iv]; a fine copy, the foot of spine perhaps a fraction knocked; in the very good dust jacket which is a little rubbed to spine tips. 
 
First edition of the author’s first book, this copy complete with a card signed by the author in blue ink, with his photograph pasted to the lower corner. A previous owner has written a short bio in pencil to the verso. 
 
Morris, formally the curator of Mammals at London Zoo, first published The Naked Ape as a series of articles in The Daily Mirror. Because of its focus on man’s sexual selection in human evolution, the book was perhaps unsurprisingly banned by certain schools in America, and even became the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court Case. 
 
The work has since been translated into 23 languages.