Alan Turing: The Enigma / A Biography (EX-LIBRARY FIRST, BUT IN A NEAR-FINE JACKET)

Hodges, Andrew

ISBN 10: 0091521300 / ISBN 13: 9780091521301

Published by Burnett Books Limited, London, 1983

About this Item

Bookplate to front pastedown states "The Library / Bolton Institute of Higher Education / Deane Campus, Deane Road, Bolton," overstamped "Withdrawn." There are also some library numbers in pen to copyright page, and small bar-code labels to FFE and rear pastedown. All (closed) page edges also bear library rubber-stamps, as does the title page. This volume looks very nice in its unclipped, "near-fine" original dust jacket, which was protected in an earlier library dust jacket protector which blessedly was NOT glued down. However, it appears to us that the blank Free Front Endpaper has been neatly cut out and discarded, leaving insufficient overlap of paper to properly repair the front hinge. The traditional means of securing this hinge (which is still holding) against further stress would be to run up a strip of archival white "library tape," but we have not done so. Copyright page states "First published 1983 by Burnett Books Limited / in association with the Hutchinson Publishing Group. . . London." Dust jacket front flap priced "L18-00 net / in UK only." Copies of this small first printing of the celebrated biography of the celebrated mathematical genius credited with breaking the World War Two German "Enigma" code -- but later bedeviled by his own countrymen for his unapologetic homosexuality -- are moderately hard-to-find. Basis for the 2014 film "The Imitation Game," starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, which won an Oscar for "Best Adapted Screenplay." The author teaches mathematics at Oxford. Alan Turing ( (1912-1954) contributed enormously to winning the war against the U-boat, largely invented the modern electronic computer, and -- (despite his war service) was arrested, stripped of his security clearance, and forced to undergo humiliating "treatment" for his homosexuality -- committing suicide at age 42. Totals 587 pp. including index. Reduced from $600.

Seller Inventory # 009031

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Alan Turing: The Enigma / A Biography (EX-LIBRARY FIRST, BUT IN A NEAR-FINE JACKET)
• Publisher: Burnett Books Limited, London
• Publication Date: 1983
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0091521300
• ISBN 13: 9780091521301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Books-Into-Film
  • Math
  • Gay Interest

About this title

Synopsis

VG condition book with dust jacket. DJ is clean, has fresh colours and has little wear to edges. Book has clean and bright contents.

Review

"One of the finest scientific biographies I’ve ever read: authoritative, superbly researched, deeply sympathetic and beautifully told" (Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind)

"Andrew Hodges' book is of exemplary scholarship and sympathy. Intimate, perceptive and insightful, it’s also the most readable biography I’ve picked up in some time" (Time Out)

"A first-rate presentation of the life of a first-rate scientific mind" (New York Times Book Review)

"One of the finest scientific biographies ever written" (New Yorker)

"A first-rate presentation of the life of a first-rate scientific mind...it is hard to imagine a more thoughtful and warm biography than this one" (Douglas Hofstadter New York Times Book Review)