The Mystic Masseur, V. S. Naipaul, The Vanguard Press, 1959 First Printing

The Mystic Masseur V. S. Naipaul, 1959,  Vanguard Press 1st printing, hardcover. Dust jacket has small tear approx. 3/4". Binding square and tight. Appears to be unread. Nice copy of author's first novel.   "In this slyly funny and lavishly inventive novel–his first–V. S. Naipaul traces the unlikely career of Ganesh Ramsumair, a failed schoolteacher and impecunious village masseur who in time becomes a revered mystic, a thriving entrepreneur, and the most beloved politician in Trinidad. To understand a little better, one has to realize that in the 1940s masseurs were the island’s medical practitioners of choice. As one character observes, “I know the sort of doctors they have in Trinidad. They think nothing of killing two, three people before breakfast.” Ganesh’s ascent is variously aided and impeded by a Dickensian cast of rogues and eccentrics. There’s his skeptical wife, Leela, whose schooling has made her excessively, fond. of; punctuation: marks!; and Leela’s father, Ramlogan, a m