Banned novel, with the author's unpublished edits to pass the censors
Resurrexit Dominus
Notes: A novel, set in Ireland, about a teenager, Sheila Moynihan, who leaves home because her brothers are molesting her, only to have to fight off an attempted rape, and to suffer further molestation by a series of priests she turns to for help. A rather grim picture of sexual violence in the 1930s.
Due to the subject matter, the book was published in an edition of 110 copies for private circulation. This book was written while Hanley's earlier novel, Boy, about a young sailor who meets a similar fate to Sheila on a merchant ship, was prosecuted in England for obscenity. Resurrexit Dominus has never been reprinted.
320 pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). A very good copy in a very good acetate dust jacket. Lacking the slipcase. Signed by Hanley on the limitation page.
This is Hanley's own copy of the book, with extensive revisions marked in pencil, sanitizing the book to make it more palatable to the official censors. In addition to the annotations in the text, there is a list of pages with changes written at the front and four sheets of notes about further changes. A unique and revealing look at an author's response to censorship.
Publication: London: Privately Printed [Boriswood], 1934.
Item No: #2735
Price: $750