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KENEALLY**, THOMAS: : A Victim of the Aurora

LONDON.COLLINS,1977.

ISBN 0002224933.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn,and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright, crisp,clean,glossy laminated,colour pictorial (taken from 'Auroral Corona with Two Figures', by Edward Wilson,courtesy of the Scott Polar Research Institute) illustrated upper panel of dw/dj,literary reviews to rear panel; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges - no nicks or tears present - minimal,sporadic spotting/foxing to dw/dj's inner flaps.Top edge very lightly dust-soiled,fore-edges brighter and cleaner; contents bright,tight and pristine - no discolouration,no dog-ear creases to any pages' corners - an unread copy? Bright,clean,blue paper-covered boards with bright,crisp,blocked gilt letters to spine/backstrip with immaculate plain white endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,5-222pp [paginated] including 7 chapters; plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,and 2pp blanks to rear. Captain Stewart selected the members of his great expedition with exemplary care,each man hand-picked for the qualities that would enable him to withstand the rigours and awful isolation of the Antarctic winter.He felt certain that he had gathered the cream of British manhood. But in an era when shame was a reality,each man carried his shame encapsulated within him.In the emotional pressure cooker of the expedition headquarters and vigorously stirred by that arch mischief- maker Victor Henneker,the elements of disunion became ever more apparent,minor irritants swelled to intolerable proportions.For the young expeditionary artist,Anthony Piers,the century began to go wrong when Henneker was unaccountably strangled on the day after mid-winter.To Piers the story of the murder is,in miniature,the pattern of our perilous century. In a sense,this is Thomas Keneally's first detective story,yet those who wish to find only the elements of a traditional whodunit should look elsewhere.This is an astonishingly vivid and convincing evocation of a polar expedition before the First World War; to read it is to enter that harsh,monastic world,to smell 'the cocoa and the acetylene lamps,the drying thermal underwear before the stove and the acid smell of Siberian pony dung . . . ' Still more,it is a compelling study of human nature under stress,of a small group of brave men facing not only the terrors of nature but the still more insidious threat from their own minds. Please contact seller,because of the weight/value of this item,for correct shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[A UK 1st edn,1st impression which precedes,by a few weeks,the Australian 1st edn.A 2nd impression was published October 1982.Book was the 1982 Booker Prize winning novel too.] FINE+/FINE.No owner inscrptn but price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp, clean,glossy laminated,colour pictorial illustrated dw/dj,with pale grey+white lettering; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no nicks,tears or splits present.Spine/backstrip of dw/dj ubiquitously and slightly sunned/faded from it's original vibrant red.Top+fore-edges bright and clean - no foxing/spotting; contents bright, tight,clean,solid and sound - virtually pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners,would appear unread - apart from my own collation.Publisher's bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,original plain black cloth boards with bright,crisp,blocked gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain white endpapers. Book has NO lean or spine-roll - straight,square and tight.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,9-432pp [paginated] includes author's note with his facsimile signature at it's conclusion,a prologue,38 chapters and an epilogue; plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,a glossary (SS Ranks and their Army equivalents) with b/w city street map (Cracow) to its verso,b/w street map with Ghetto inset map,with a b/w sketch map of K L PLASZOW (Schindler's Factory) to verso. Item presents as really superb and exceptional quality/condition of those I've handled - so far. A highly collected Booker Prize winning author and this title will be an important and welcome addition to the Keneally/Booker Prize canon. Drawing on his own extensive researches, Keneally takes us back into Nazi-occupied Poland,from where an extraordinary tale emerges - of an extraordinary man's mission to save the Jewish people. On the face of it,lusty,worldly Oskar Schindler was a most unlikely missionary.He had moved to Cracow in the wake of the Nazi occupation of Poland to profit from the rich pickings to be had by the bold and by the Aryan.A big man in every sense,with an appetite to match,for success,for women and for drink,Schindler,a Sudeten German,thrived.He rapidly established himself as a powerful Cracow figure,head of a major industrial concern moulded from the ruins of threatened Jewish-run businesses,a dabbler in the black market - partly to keep himself and his mistress in the manner to which they were accustomed,partly for the hell of it - and a man with influential connections extending far outside Cracow.Schindler was a man who knew how to play his cards. Yet this was a man whose deeds by the end of the war were to have earned him a place on Mount Zion as one of the honoured dead of the Israeli nation.On the Avenue of Righteous People a tree bears his name. Schindler was to become a champion of the oppressed,the protector of the Jews,at a time when prudent people thanked their lucky stars for their birthright and kept their eyes averted. Always a man of extravagant gestures,Schindler was to achieve a series of fantastic feats in his championing of 'his Jews',in fact of any Jew fortunate enough to come under his protection. What began as an instinctive distaste for the bully and the pervert was to develop into an increasingly fervent campaign as the anti- Jewish measures of the Nazis escalated. Schindler succeeded in walking a tightrope between Nazi officials and Jewish contacts - a tightrope which involved him in playing cards for the life of a Jewish girl with the local camp commandant,laying out a personal fortune in bribes,and eventually led him to the gates of Ausschwitz to extract his chosen people from under the eyes of the infamous Mengele. . . 'Schindler's Ark' tells of the exceptional people that he attracted to himself,of the band of courageous women with whom he was involved - and of the nobility and sagacity of individuals whom he came to know among the Jewish people. But,above all,it exposes the strange quirk of fate,or of human character,which could produce in Schindler a mission to save and yet in others,often very similar in temperament,and equally far from sanity,a mission to exterminate. Please contact seller,because of the weight and the value of this item for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page! N.B. ALL buyers please note,stocks' actual shipping/P+p costs are adjusted and any difference is refunded,after order's receipt and before the order's despatch,especially if the item(s) are offered either P+p included/FREE. ** N.B. US/Canada customers please be aware: Standard AIRMAIL postage from UK to these destinations can now cost more than the price of the book! If speed is not of the essence,then Economy rate is recommended - at approx. anything from a 1/3rd to 1/2 of the standard US AIR quote/rate - sometimes arriving sooner than the 42 days - but not always. **

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.
Not SIGNED.

KENEALLY, Thomas : A Victim Of the Aurora

Collins 1977

1st ed, near fine (name f.e.p), in fine d/w.

KENEALLY, Thomas : A Victim Of The Aurora

Collins, 1977

First Ediiton. Near fine (name fep) in near fine d/w, tiny lamination chip foot spine.

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