NY, Viking, (1962). Kesey's landmark first book, a pivotal novel of the literature of the Sixties, which helped to shape a generation's attitudes on issues of authority, power, madness and, finally, individuality. A uniquely decorated copy, fully marbled by Kesey on the front and back covers, spine, and page edges and signed "Kesey" in block colored letters on the front flyleaf. A year before Kesey died, a collector sent him a group of books asking him to sign them, and in particular for Cuckoo's Nest to do something "special." Kesey, who had been experimenting with marbling, and could not, one imagines, have missed the similarity between the bookish art and the psychedelic art of the 1960s counterculture that he had helped to create, marbled the entire book, on all sides. We only know of one other book he did this to: a paperback of the same title, for the same collector. This is the only clothbound book we know of that he treated this way, and it is a startling artifact, bearing virtually no traces of the familiar binding, but rather presenting a whorling, flowing image, predominantly in red, white and pink. Tape shadows to flyleaf; a very near fine, and unique, copy in a near fine, first issue (Kerouac blurb) dust jacket, with tape shadows to flaps, hairline cracks to the colors, but very little of the usual fading. Possibly the only such copy in existence. [#029594] SOLD