The extraordinary life of an illegal copy of Portnoy’s Complaint: ‘It’s a terrific Australian story’

‘It must have been passed around a million sharehouses’: a samizdat copy of Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth, misspelled Phillip. Photograph: Sian Cain/The Guardian

Inside the hallowed halls of State Library Victoria, a very special and scrappy little book is currently on display: Portnoy’s Complaint, the only book ever written by one “Phillip Roth”.

This battered, stained edition of the infamously filthy novel, with Roth’s first name misspelled with two Ls on the cover, is enormously significant: one of three known surviving copies of an illegal edition printed in Australia when the book was banned across the country.