The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis 1st ed. 1986 (Preloved)

Kingsley Amis’s sharp, affectionate and often riotously funny portrait of ageing, friendship and regret, set firmly in the landscape and culture of Wales. The novel follows a close-knit group of retired friends living in a small Welsh town, where old rivalries, long memories and well-worn habits resurface with boozy enthusiasm.

Amis uses Wales not merely as a backdrop but as a living presence: its towns, pubs, accents and rhythms shape the characters’ identities and their sense of belonging. The book explores the tensions between Englishness and Welshness, nostalgia and modernity, with a keen ear for dialogue and an unflinching eye for human weakness. By turns cruel, compassionate and deeply comic, The Old Devils is both a celebration of Welsh life and a darkly humorous meditation on growing old, memory and national identity.

Winner of the 1986 Booker Prize, it remains one of Amis’s most distinctive novels, rooted in Wales and rich with wit, warmth and biting social observation.

• Guild Publishing London 1986 first edition
• Format: Hardback with dustcover
• Language: English
• 294 pages

Condition: very good - minimal scffs to dustcover. Names to front page