 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
First American Edition, (1 of 650 copies). Hard cover, 12mo, in original blue cloth with blind stamped borders to boards, the spine with the titles: ALMAYER'S/FOLLY/-----/CONRAD/MACMILLAN & CO. blocked in gold. Copyright MacMillan, 1895. Printed at: J.S. Cushing & Co.-- Berwick and Smith, The Norwood Press, Norwood, Mass., USA. Founded just a year prior from several former Massachusetts firms, this Boston-area book factory on Washington Street in Norwood provided "soup to nuts" services of typesetting, printing and bookbinding. (Norwood Histor. Soc.) **COLLATION: [6],1-276, [3pp. undated publisher's catalogue], [3]pp. **CONDITION: Very Good Minus. No dust jacket. Light shelf wear bottom edges. Binding slightly cocked. Top board shows some marks and a small area of old attempted re-coloring. One eighth inch small area of fraying at the foot of spine which is otherwise clean and fresh looking, and not sunned. Inside, front hinge is fine, and rear hinge has been reglued. Wove endpapers and pages otherwise remain clean bright and unwritten upon. An old repair to a closed tear on bottom right of title page, about 3/8 inch long. 2 closed lateral tears, each about 2 inches in length, to tops of pages 166 and 167. These are presumed to result from a paper defect and are left as found. The second tear affects the text marginally. Despite any faults, this book looks nice on the shelf and provides a very nice reading copy of a scarce edition. Now in a mylar protector.**This is the FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF CONRAD's FIRST NOVEL, set from uncorrected typescript and printed just 4 days after the British firm T. Fisher Unwin's first edition. (This is the scarcer edition, with only 650 copies printed, while the British edition was 1100 copies.) ***This is one of Conrad's "Malaya" stories, set in what was then still the period of British colonial rule in that Southeast Asian locale which included Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo and Malay, now organized as the Malaya Federation. Written while the author remained a working mariner, the manuscript famously traveled with him for five years, ever expanding, while the author continued working as a ships' mate, and was almost lost at sea. In the story, set about 1887, a Dutch trader in Borneo, Kaspar Almayer, marries the adopted Filipino daughter of Capt.Tom Lingard, thus gaining title to the latter's gold mines upriver. Dissatisfied with her boorish white husband, Mrs. Almayer becomes entangled in a nationalist plot against the European traders, and encourages her daughter Nina to elope with a Balinese prince, Dain Maroola, against her husband's wishes. The novel forms the end part of a trilogy, with " The Outcast of the Islands," set in the 1870's, (published 1896) and finally, "The Rescue" set in the 1850's (pub. 1920). Complexities of race relations and colonialism have made these works of interest to scholars. The novel was adapted to film, in a 2016 movie of the same name, directed by Chantal Akerman. Scarce. Ref: Cagle A1(2), binding "a" (via Kent dot edu). Keating [3]. Supino A1.11.0 (a).
Ref: CONRD 9187
$350.00