KESEY, Ken (1935-2001). One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Viking, 1962.

8vo. Original cloth (very light stain to rear board); in unclipped dust jacket (dust jacket restored with portions recolored and some work in facsimile); folding case

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with the unedited text on pp. 9, 85-86. IN FIRST STATE DUST JACKET with five word Kerouac quote on inner front flap, and with bright orange top stain. Ken Kesey began writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest while working the graveyard shift as an orderly at Menlo Park Veteran's Hospital. Imagined as something of a modern retelling of Melville's Moby Dick, Kesey wrote most of the novel while under the influence of hallucinogens supplied to him by the CIA as part of the MKUltra program. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was later adapted into a 1975 Academy Award-winning film starring Jack Nicholson.