BILLY LIAR

Penguin 4 1/4 inch x 7 inch 192 page Paperback Film Tie-in for BILLY LIAR by Keith Waterhouse

This is the Sixth Penguin edition (1783), 1968

The semi-comical story is about William Fisher, a working-class 19-year-old living with his parents in the fictional town of Stradhoughton in Yorkshire. Bored by his job as a lowly clerk for an undertaker, Billy spends his time indulging in fantasies and dreams of life in the big city as a comedy writer.

Cover design incorporating stills of Tom Courtenay from the 1963 John Schlesinger film by Germano Facetti (1926 – 2006). An Italian graphic designer who headed design at Penguin Books from 1962 to 1971.

By the late 1950s he was art director at Aldus Books and working as an interior designer. It was his interior for the Poetry Bookshop in Soho that inspired the director of Penguin, Allen Lane, to invite him to join as the art director in 1960. Facetti was instrumental in redesigning the Penguin line, introducing phototypesetting, the ‘Marber grid’, offset-litho printing and photography to their paperback covers.

Facetti was also responsible for the black cover designs of the Penguin Classics series from 1963.[4] He recruited a number of leading designers of the day, and one of his important achievements for Penguin was to impose a consistently high standard of cover design.

The book is in very good condition with previous owner’s name on first page and minor cover marks.