Apparently the kids at West End High School just weren't checking out this first (English 1963) edition of Planet of the Apes often enough to keep it on the shelves.  Too bad for them, as it was a good read, but good for me, who found it at Reed Books in Birmingham.  The plot was changed up a bit for the movie, but each have their high (and low) points.  And Zira and Cornelius come through intact in both versions.  

Just as interesting as the story, though, was learning a bit about its author, Pierre Boulle.  We learn on the cover that he is also "author of The Bridge Over the River Kwai".  Who knew?  None of the dozen or so people who has seen my copy of this book since I purchased it, at any rate.  But it turns out there are some similarities between Apes and Kwai that I wouldn't have suspected.  Think about it -- both involve the "good guys", with a focus on one or a very small group of good guys, being brutally imprisoned by enemies from an alien culture, with whom it is very difficult to communicate.  But in both stories, the prisoners persevere, overcome obstacles, convince their captors to cooperate with them, at least to a degree, and achieve some kind of escape or possible revenge or justice at the end, only to see how hollow it really is.  (The book version of Apes has no Statute of Liberty at the end; the eponymous "Planet" really isn't Earth after all, though the end of the story is every bit as soul-crushing as Charlton Heston on that beach.)

So how did Boulle come up with these themes for his novels?  Turns out he had a pretty interesting story himself.  But first, check him out doing his mid-century French intellectual look:

The inside back cover fills in the essential details of M. Boulle's life:

Of course he wrote peacefully in a converted windmill near Paris.  Wouldn't you?