The Citadel.

London: Victor Gollancz Ltd,, 1937. First edition, first impression, of the author's best-known novel, scarce with the dust jacket in such bright condition. The story concerns a doctor's struggle to balance scientific integrity with social obligations. It is considered a groundbreaking work in medical ethics and helped to promote the establishment of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. The UK edition was published in July 1937, with the US edition following later the same month. Its publication led to uproar, with newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic expressing concerns over the state of the medical profession, and "even the British Ministry of Health began an inquiry into fee-splitting and established a fund to enable two thousand physicians engaged in state medicine to take postgraduate courses" (Salwak, p. 64). In an interview with John Ware, Cronin defended his book: "I have written in The Citadel all I feel about the medical profession, its injustices, its hide-bound unscientific stubbornness... the horrors and inequities detailed in the story I have personally witnessed. This is not an attack against individuals, but against a system" (ibid.). Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Head of spine bumped, extremities a little rubbed; jacket bright with a few marks, spine sunned, edges lightly creased with a few nicks, unclipped: a near-fine copy in like jacket. Dale Salwak, A. J. Cronin, 1985.