One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

First published in 1962, this novel is set on a locked ward in an Oregon psychiatric hospital. The narrator, Chief Bromden, pretends to be deaf and mute while watching Nurse Ratched run the ward through routine, group confession, and punishment. Randle Patrick McMurphy, a gambling con man sent from a work farm, challenges her control with card games, a fishing trip, and open defiance. Patients including Harding, Billy Bibbit, and the Chief shift between fear and loyalty as the contest hardens. The book is a ward allegory of institutional power, not a clinical study of mental illness.

Bound in grey buckram, blocked in black with a title design by David Hughes.