KATHY ACKER — Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream, Paladin, London, 1986

First British edition, paperback original, published by Paladin / Grafton Books, London, 1986. Front-cover illustration by Catherine Denvir. Illustrated softcover; 207 pages; 13 × 20 cm. ISBN 0-586-08554-8.

Condition: good, visibly handled; rubbing, scratching and creasing to wrappers, edge and corner wear, age-toning, surface marking and areas of abrasion to rear cover. Binding appears intact. Interior condition not confirmed.

Published in the same year as the American Grove Press edition, this was Acker’s first British edition of the novel. Cervantes’s wandering knight returns as a woman moving through abortion, desire, American history, Nixon-era politics, New York and London. The borrowed structure is not adapted respectfully but broken open and reused as a means of writing against fixed gender, identity and literary ownership.

The Paladin cover translates the book into an especially concentrated image: female knight, dogs, fragmented architecture and urban collapse arranged as a commercial paperback adventure. Catherine Denvir’s collage-like illustration makes visible what Acker does through writing — an existing cultural object dismantled and returned under another name.

The edition is now comparatively scarce. Current dealer copies begin around US$65, with a good copy offered above US$100; signed examples sit far higher and are not directly comparable.

Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.