New York: William Faro, 1932

8vo, pp. 224. Original hessian boards, spine label lettered in red. Paper on rear pastedown a little split at spine. A clean tight copy in the extremely scarce and strikingly designed dustwrapper, a little chipping with loss at spine ends and top edge of rear panel, and with some tape reinforcement to closed tears.

First edition, iINSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ON THE FRONT FREE ENDPAPER: 'For Bill Ryan - a grand researcher - this memoir of an adolescent youth on his way to nowhere. Anthony Gudiatis.'

A rare book, more interesting for its publishing connections than its contents. The title is a nod to James Joyce, whose A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man is given a favourable name-check in the book. There, however, all similarity ends: this Portrait is the barely-disguised excavations of an adolescent diary, capped by a suicide-note finale which mistakes internally-rhyming sentences for Modernism. Gudaitis wrote under several names, and sometimes none at all: as Anton Gud, he edited Don't Vote Til You Read This, a libertarian manifesto published in 1952, and he is also believed to have been the uncredited author of Lady Chatterley's Husbands, published by Roth under his William Faro imprint in 1931. Bill Ryan, to whom this copy is inscribed, was another member of the publisher's inner circle, and co-author of Granddaddy of Smut, a profile of Roth which appeared in the February 1977 issue of Hustler magazine.

Very scarce in any condition, let alone inscribed and in dustwrapper. A fabulous copy.