BARTHES, Roland. S/Z. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974. Later printing. 8vo. 271pp. Trade paperback. Bookstore price sticker to the last page, touch of soiling to the spine, slight fading to the wrappers, otherwise fine.

The linguistic distillation of Barthe's system of semiology, a science of signs and symbols, in which a Balzac novel, Sarrasine, is dissected semantically in order to uncover layers of unsuspected meanings and connotations. In the process, Barthes reveals the immeasurably fecund nature of language. His interpretation of language and meaning within the structuralist mode offers an altogether new and exciting vision of age-worn ideas, and stands,m in twentieth century thought, alongside Lefi-Strauss' pioneer work in anthropology.