[SYKES, Christopher and CONNOLLY, Cyril]. – Aldous HUXLEY. Eyeless in Gaza. London: Chatto & Windus, 1936. 8°. Half title (one leaf torn at upper margin, occasional light mainly marginal staining). Original tan cloth, lettered in red (some light staining, without the dust-jacket). FIRST EDITION. THIS UNIQUE COPY CONTAINS, ON COUNTLESS PAGES, THE EXCORIATING MOCKERY IN ANNOTATION AND CARICATURE OF CHRISTOPHER SYKES (in ink), CYRIL CONNOLLY (in pencil) AND JEAN CONNOLLY, to whom the defaced volume was presented by Christopher Sykes, and inscribed on the front free endpaper: “To Jean. This radiant jewel shining in our sad world, from Chrissy.” Some comments, both literary and ad hominem, chosen at random: “It is a tale told by an idiot” (CS, on the title); “He has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing” (CC, also on the title); underlining a superfluity of adverbs (CC, pp.46-47); “He writes like a boot. Like a boot” (CC, p.169); “Dreadful old oyster and his horrible cultured pearl. It’s monstrous that a man like Huxley should suffer martyrdom for literature” (CS, p.174); an impatience with stammering (CS, p.205); “This is the most boring stuff I ever saw – stale as the lout’s own excreta” & “d’accord” (CS & CC, p.215); “I used to describe faces this way, before I could write” (CS, p.233); a gathering of clichés underlined (CC, p.346); a misquoted expletive (CS, p.494); “This stuff about Anna Karenina is the silliest stuff I have ever read anywhere. The silly sod must have been swindled and given another book with a Tolstoy wrapper. He certainly never read the Anna Karenina that I did. It’s a comfort to reflect that the having made such silly remarks will haunt him forever. From hereon I decline to read any more of this muck” (CS, pp.522-3). Often several pages of text are crossed through and marked with a delete symbol. The verso of the final endpaper has a pencil drawing, marked “by Jean”, of someone being sick.