Signed; David Goldblatt - In Boksburg - 1982

David Goldblatt, In Boksburg, signed first edition (Cape Town, 1982)

First edition of David Goldblatt's most celebrated book, a photographic essay on life in a small, middle-class, white South African town, photographed in 1979 and 1980. Published by The Gallery Press, Cape Town, 1982, in an edition of 3,000 copies. ISBN 0 620 05933 8.

Signed by David Goldblatt in ink on the page facing the title page. This is the trade edition, signed but not numbered. It is not one of the 50 numbered copies of the separate limited issue.

88 pages with 71 black and white photographs, plus Goldblatt's introduction dated Johannesburg, March 1982. Oblong quarto, approx. 28.5 x 29 cm. Black cloth boards in pictorial dust jacket. Duotone reproduction on 170 gsm Finn Art paper. Book design by Brian Gannon. Dedicated "For Lily".

Condition: Book near fine. Boards clean and square, binding tight, pages bright with no foxing. Dust jacket very good, with light rubbing and small nicks to the head and tail of the spine and the edges, and no significant tears or loss. The jacket shows the ballerina photograph and is believed to be the later 1989 jacket, issued with the same printing.

In Boksburg was Goldblatt's third book and the first title from Paul Alberts' Gallery Press. It is included in Parr and Badger's The Photobook: A History, Vol. II. Later facsimile and Steidl editions exist, but this is the original 1982 printing.

Shipping: Heavy, around 1.4 kg. Packed rigidly and insured.