Darkness at Noon
by Koestler, Arthur
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/No Jacket
- Seller
-
Rockville, Maryland, United States
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About This Item
Synopsis
Darkness at Noon, by Hungarian-born British writer Arthur Koestler, is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government that he had helped to create. The novel is understood as an allegory to the USSR in 1938, the Great Purge, and the Moscow Trials. However, the text never mentions the Soviet Union or Russia (just “Country of the Revolution” and “Over There”) or Joseph Stalin (only “Number One,” a menacing dictator). Perhaps the lack of specific references is Koestler’s way of making the story seem more universal, but it’s clear he has in mind actual places, people, and events. Koestler was actually a proponent of Marxism-Leninism until Stalin’s 1938 Purge and the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Afterwards, he edited an anti-Hitler, anti-Stalin newspaper. Koestler wrote the novel in German while living in Paris, from where he escaped in 1940 just before the Nazi troops arrived. Darkness at Noon owes its publication to the decision of sculptor Daphne Hardy, Koestler’s lover in Paris, to translate the text into English before she herself escaped. Koestler wrote Darkness at Noon as the second part of a trilogy; the first volume is The Gladiators (1939), first published in Hungarian. It is a novel about the subversion of the Spartacus revolt. The third novel is Arrival and Departure (1943), about a refugee during World War II. By then living in London, Koestler wrote the third in English. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Darkness at Noon number eight on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Sidney Kingsley adapted it for Broadway in 1951.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Bren-Books.com (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 008456
- Title
- Darkness at Noon
- Author
- Koestler, Arthur
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- No Jacket
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Publisher
- The MacMillan Co.
- Place of Publication
- NY
- Date Published
- 1941
- Keywords
- Classic
Terms of Sale
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Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- VG
- Very Good condition can describe a used book that does show some small signs of wear - but no tears - on either binding or...
- Copyright page
- The page in a book that describes the lineage of that book, typically including the book's author, publisher, date of...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Title Page
- A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.