London: Faber, 1964

8vo, pp. 237. Original grey boards, lettered in red to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper. Endpapers a little browned, but a near fine copy in a very good dustwrapper with some wear to spine ends and edges.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO FRONT FREE ENDPAPER: ‘Mirta’s copy of GREYHOUND: She is a great teacher of Croat. I’m sure she’ll be a great translator! Love Brian Oxford 5.iv.65’.

Aldiss was learning Croat in 1965 as preparation: his only travel book Cities and Stones: A Traveller’s Jugoslavia was published in 1966 (and was promptly banned in Jugoslavia). Mirta is thanked in the book’s acknowledgements, but her surname is not recorded.

Currey lists the US edition (Harcourt Brace, 1964) as the true first; Reginald disagrees, citing this as the first edition. Clut/Nicholls states: ‘Greybeard (cut 1964 US; full version 1964 UK’. Indisputably, the novel is listed in David Pringle’s Science Fiction: Best 100 Novels.