Boy Swallows Universe (Signed, First Edition)

Trent Dalton’s prize-sweeping debut novel of 1980s Brisbane, in the first printing of the Fourth Estate trade paperback, signed by the author.

Trent Dalton, born in 1979 in Ipswich on the outskirts of Brisbane, was a journalist before he was a novelist, and a two-time Walkley Award winner who had served as an assistant editor at the Courier-Mail. His debut is semi-autobiographical. It follows Eli Bell from thirteen to eighteen through the street-level drug trade of 1980s Brisbane, with a mute older brother, August, who communicates by writing in the air, and an infamous ex-convict turned babysitter. Eli himself is drawn to a career in journalism at the Courier-Mail.

The book appeared in mid-2018 as a trade paperback, and its success was extraordinary. It won the Dymocks Book of the Year for 2018, and in 2019 it took a record four Australian Book Industry Awards, including Book of the Year and the Matt Richell Award for New Writer. It also won the Indie Book Awards Book of the Year and Debut Fiction categories, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards’ UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and its People’s Choice Award, and was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. By May 2019 it had sold more than 129,000 copies in Australia and been published in more than 28 languages. Harper issued an American edition in 2019, and Netflix released a seven-episode series in January 2024.

This copy is the first printing of the original Australian trade paperback and is signed by the author.

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author to the lower title page. Octavo. 474pp. Original illustrated softcover wrappers. Some minor creasing at cover corners. Some faint markings to textblock edges.

This book is currently not on display in store.
If you would like more information or to arrange a viewing, please contact: rarebooks@harryhartog.com.au

Catalogue Number: HH000695