TOUCHING DISTANCE. [Author SIGNED copy.]

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,author SIGNED+dated,1st edn.FINE/NFINE.No owner inscrptn,but author's neat,handwritten,black ink date, location and signature - without dedication: 'Rebecca Abrams Oxford,2009' to title page,and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp, clean,colour photographic illustrated dw/dj with red+b/w lettering; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no major nicks or tears present.Some minor,miniscule rubbing to 2 top corners of inner flaps of dw/dj along with a couple of tiny,tiny snicks to top edges also,the majority of minimal creasing is to the top edges.Top+fore-edges generally bright and clean; contents bright, tight,clean,solid and sound - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - possibly unread? Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original,plain black cloth boards with bright, crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip,and immaculate plain white eps.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,SIGNED,1st edn,5-310pp [paginated] includes Pts 1-3 comprising 62 chapters and acknowledgements at rear,plus [unpaginated] half-title,author SIGNED title page,a dedication,prose extracts page,and Pts separator pages. It is 1790.After ten years' training in the great medical schools of Europe,Alec Gordon has returned to Scotland to take up the post of Physician to the Aberdeen Dispensary.Alec has ambitious plans for modernizing medical practice in the town,starting with the local midwives,whose ignorance and old-fashioned methods appall him.But Alec's dreams of progress are thrown into disarray when a mysterious disease suddenly strikes the town,attacking and killing every newly delivered mother for miles around.Alec alone recognises it as childbed fever,a disease more deadly than the plague,a condition that has baffled the greatest physicians of the age,an illness with no known cause and no known cure.Desperate to save his patients' lives,Alec sets out on an astonishing medical quest to conquer the disease.But while Alec struggles to find solutions that lie far in the future,his wife Elisabeth is increasingly lost in the past,prey to terrifying memories of her childhood in Antigua.As she knows and he will learn,some diseases lie beyond the reach of reason.Author's debut novel. Based on a true story,'Touching Distance' is a stunning historical novel that brings to life a fascinating period in world history, exploring the tragic limitations of knowledge and the deep-seated tension between reason and passion in the Age of Enlightenment. A regular contributor to the 'Guardian' and a former columnist for the 'Daily Telegraph'.She lives in Oxford,where this book was signed.Her most recent non-fiction book (then 2008),'Three Shoes,One Sock and No Hairbrush' was a UK bestseller. Since April,2013,again in March,2015,and in this year too,the UK Post Office has altered it's Pricing in Proportion template,altering its prices,weight allowances,dimensions and lowered its compensation rates too! So,please contact rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,because of the lighter weight and the value of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!