Bridge on the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle, First Edition (15 results)

Bon état. Sans date.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Lovely clean copy. One owner from new.

Paperback. Condition: VG-. 1st Thus. Rear cover has film stills. Book is in very good minus condition with minor but noticeable signs of wear and/or age. BUt bit cocked.

Pictorial Wraps. Condition: Very Good. First Thus. Translated from the French by Xan Fielding. Film tie-in edition, with ad for the movie to rear cover. Front cover blurb: "Suspense and sabotage behind the Jap lines". Mass market paperback. Printed in Great Britain. Handling wear, mild marginal toning, otherwise a nice clean tight solid softcover copy. 189pp. SB-81.

Condition: Good. 1954. First Edition Thus. 171 pages. No dust jacket. Paper covered boards. Clean pages with mild tanning throughout. Tightly bound with faint thumb-marking throughout. Pencil inscription to front pastedown and endpaper. Boards have light shelf-wear with corner bumping. Heavy tanning to spine. Moderate sunning to board edges. Moderate water stains to boards. Boards are notably warped.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition, second impression, published later the same year. Some edge wear and chipping to top and bottom of jacket and spine, small missing piece to middle of spine, corners rubbed with small loss, but overall fab retro jacket bright and unsunned. not price clipped (10s 6d), small previous owner's name to ffep, some offsetting to endpapers, internally clean tight and square, overall a vg++ copy. 171pp. The semi fictional story of the POWs who endure the hell of the Japanese camps on the Burma Siam railway. Colonel Nicholson, a man prepared to sacrifice his life but not his dignity, Major Warden a modest hero, saboteur and deadly killer, Commander Shears, who escaped from hell but was sent back. Ordered by the Japanese to build a bridge the Colonel refuses, as it is against regulations for officers to work with other ranks. The Japanese give way but, to prove a point of British superiority, construction of the bridge goes ahead, at great cost to the men under Nicholson's command. David Lean made the motion picture that won seven 1957 Oscars, including the Best Picture, and Best Actor for Alec Guinness. Boulle (1912-94), himself won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay despite not having written the screenplay and, by his own admission, not even speaking English. Boulle had been credited with the screenplay because the film's actual screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, had been blacklisted as communist sympathizers. Boulle was neither a socialist nor a communist. The Motion Picture Academy added Foreman's and Wilson's names to the award in 1984. Kim Novak accepted the Oscar on behalf of Pierre Boulle. Translator Xan Fielding (Major Alexander Wallace Fielding DSO 1918-91), was a British author, translator, journalist and traveller, who served as a Special Operations Executive agent in Crete, France and the Far East during World War II. He is now remembered for his part in the abduction of German General Kreipe on Crete with Paddy Leigh Fermor. A scarce book.

First English edition, first printing. Original green cloth with silver titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. A near very good copy, the binding firm, the corners bumped, the cloth rubbed and with some wrinkling to the slightly rolled spine. The contents, with a bookplate to the front pastedown and seemingly issued without a front endpaper, has a couple of tiny ink spots to the text block fore-edge and some spotting to the prelims, are otherwise clean throughout. Complete with the rubbed, nicked and creased dustwrapper which has a number of closed tears and some loss at the base of the spine. Not price-clipped (10s 6d on the front flap). The first impression is quite scarce. A novel about prisoners of war labouring on a railway bridge in Burma during World War II. Though the novel is fictionalised and features no real people as characters, Boulle drew from his own experience of forced labour during World War II and from the real construction of the Burma or "Death" Railway by prisoners of war under the control of the Japanese Imperial Army. The basis for the 1957 Academy Award winning film of the same name, directed by David Lean, starring William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. Further details and images for any of the items listed are available on request. Lucius Books welcomes direct contact with our customers.

First Edition - American. Proof copy in blue wrappers with special printed label giving advance publisherÕs information. The basis of the epic motion picture directed by David Lean, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. The first English edition (first printing). 8vo. 170pp. Green cloth lettered in silver at the spine. Issued without endpapers. Several small areas of discolouration to the cloth where the dust wrapper is defective. Edges and half-title (serving is the front free endpaper) lightly spotted and with a small area of miscellaneous light staining to the margins of one or two text leaves. Handsome bookplate of 'Watership Down' author Richard Adams to the front pastedown, along side a small dealer plate. A very good copy in non-price-clipped pictorial dust wrapper; alas a somewhat distressed example - chipped with an inch of loss from the head of the spine panel (impacting four of the title letters), and with three more smaller areas of edge-loss, some dust soiling, some chafing to the natural folds and several short tears with accompanying creasing. Boulle's semi-fictional Secord World War classic, partly based on his own experiences working in Malaysian rubber plantations and his later work with the allied forces in Singapore and Indochina. Fielding also served as the translator for Boulle's science fiction classic 'La Planète des Singes' (1963), his English-language version issued under the title 'Monkey Planet', and subsequently re-issued as 'Planet of the Apes'. No rabbits in sight.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. The Bridge on the River Kwai, Pierre Boulle, Secker & Warburg, 1954, First Edition First Impression Based on his own experiences as a Japanese prisoner-of-war in Indochina, Pierre Boulle's 1952 novel, Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai, won the Prix Sainte-Beuve, and was quickly released as an english translation. It became the basis for David Lean's 1957 film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, although the novel's original ending, in which the bridge was not destroyed, was changed. Lean's brilliant epic won seven of eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Alec Guinness. A First Edition, First Impression in very good condition. The binding is straight and tight, the boards clean and the lettering on the spine bright. Spine slightly sunned. The end papers include two owners bookplates but they and the pages are free from marks, tears or inscriptions. Some sunning to the spine. Minor foxing to endpapers. The clipped dust jacket, protected in a clear, removable cover is in very good condition bright with some darkening in parts, some rubbing / wear at the corners, a couple of small enclosed tears, some darkening to the cream coloured rear cover and small loss to the top of the spine Becoming rarer in very good condition and of real historical significance. Will be dispatched wrapped in bubblewrap and in a cardboard box.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Octavo, original green cloth, original dust jacket. 8vo., 171pp. A near-fine copy in a bright slightly worn price-clipped dustwrapper. Issued without the endpapers. A copy that's nicer than usually found. First edition in English of the novel that became David Lean's Academy Award-winning film, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden. Based on his own experiences as a Japanese prisoner-of-war in Indochina, Pierre Boulle's 1952 novel, Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai, won the Prix Sainte-Beuve. It became the basis for David Lean's 1957 film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, although the novel's original ending, in which the bridge was not destroyed, was changed. Lean's brilliant epic won seven of eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Alec Guinness. An Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaptation was also awarded Boulle, who worked on the screenplay with Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, but because both Foreman and Wilson were blacklisted, Boulle alone received screen credit. It was not until 1984 that Foreman and Wilson's contributions were finally acknowledged. Translated from the French by Xan Fielding.

1st edition. Hardcover. Near fine green cloth, slightly browned spine, very clean pages with no foxing or marks, no endpapers as originally issued, in a near fine dustjacket, not price-clipped, slightly rubbed to rear panel with a few small repairs, presenting very well indeed. Translated from the French by Xan Fielding. Boulle's famous novel draws on his wartime experiences in Burma and Indo-China and on the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-3, making a memorable Oscar-winning film starring Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson, the senior British officer in a prison camp in Siam.

Original brochure celebrating the David Lean war film 'Bridge on the River Kwai' with the story of the film by Claude Houghton, based on the screenplay written by Pierre Boulle. Real wood block measuring 4.75 inches by 2.75 inches affixed to front cover, inscribed, "This bridge was designed and constructed by soldiers of the British Army Feb - May 1943 Lt.Col. L Nicholson, D.S.O Commanding." Oblong quarto, original wrappers, illustrated with black and white photographs of the cast and film. Boldly signed by Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins on the title page. In very good condition. The entire piece measures 14 inches by 10 inches. Rare and desirable signed. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), directed by David Lean, is a critically acclaimed war film that explores themes of duty, honor, and the psychological complexities of war. Based on Pierre Boulleâs novel, the film is set during World War II and follows British prisoners of war forced by the Japanese to construct a railway bridge in Burma. The central conflict arises between Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), who sees the bridge as a testament to British ingenuity and discipline, and the pragmatic Allied forces who seek to destroy it. The film masterfully critiques the absurdity of war, illustrating how personal pride and misplaced loyalty can lead to unintended consequences. Its cinematography, gripping narrative, and moral dilemmas make it a landmark in cinematic history, earning multiple Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

1st edition chipped dust jacket Very Good small octavo 171pp., Some chips & closed tears to dust jacket and some sporadic foxing to prelims o/w VG copy of the very scarce first edition.

A first edition, first printing published by Secker and Warburg in 1954. A near fine book (opening onto the half title as called for), without inscriptions, in a very good+ clipped wrapper with a small ink stain to the bottom edge of the rear panel. Two small nicks, one to the top and one to the bottom of the front panel.