Richard Condon’s The Manchurian Candidate was an immediate hit when it was released in 1959 and, because of its hardcore prose, was named one of the Ten Best Bad Novels by Time magazine. Condon (1925-1995) never went to college and began his literary career as a copywriter and a film publicist with Walt Disney Studios. He later described his job there as “a drummer boy for the gnomes and elves of the silver screen." He was eventually to write 26 novels including Winter Kills and Prizzi’s Honor, but it was The Manchurian Candidate, his gloriously sinister montage of Cold War hysteria, sexual manipulation, brainwashing and political murder, that set the pattern of his literary success. The book remains a shocking and mordant read and a benchmark of the psycho-thriller genre. Condition: Fine, tight copy. Dust jacket very good, not price-clipped, chips to upper and lower spine and front right upper corner. In a Brodart cover. Dimensions: 6" x 8.5" x 1.5".