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Under the Volcano: A Novel.

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Under the Volcano: A Novel.

by Malcolm Lowry

  • Used
  • Hardcover
  • first
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Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Oregon City, Oregon, United States
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About This Item

New York, NY Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947. Hardcover First Ed, unstated. First Ed, [preceding the English edition] unstated. The true first edition of this classic novel. In the First State DJ with "Advance Critical Acclam" blurbs by Robert Penn Warren, Alfred Kazin, Stephen Spender, and Conrad Aiken on the rear panel. Good+ in Fair DJ: Book shows indications of careful use, but use nonetheless: just a hint of wear to the extremities; light shelf-wear along the bottom edge; top edge dusted; spine leans; several faint white-tinted soil spots at the back strip and upper rear panel. Binding remains quite secure; text clean. DJ shows heavy wear: considerable wear to the extremities, including chip loss in a number of spots, the largest a the heel of the back strip and some smaller chips along the top edges; another small spot of loss at the outside edge of the front panel; cellophane tape applaid to verso and a five-inch tape along the upper rear panel and rear inside flap; quite a bit of soiling to the once-white field of the rear panel; price clipped; mylar-protected. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 375pp. Plain pale grey linen cloth boards stamped in dark maroon at spine and front cover and with a Deckle Fore-Edge, in black, candy cherry red and yellow DJ. Hardback with DJ. A book unmistakeably close to its Author's heart and mind, if not in fact a form of spiritual autobiography. To describe his perennial theme, Lowry once borrowed the words of the critic Edmund Wilson: 'the forces in man which cause him to be terrified of himself.' You see exactly what he means in this coruscating novel, which traces the last 24 hours in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, once the British consul in a hellish Mexican town, now a dedicated but utterly cogent alcoholic in that same town, on a day when his ex-wife has returned in a futile attempt to reach out to him. Shadowed by the hoodlums of the corrupt local officialdom, beset by his own furies, Firmin hurtles himself, annotating his fall all the while, into a pit of suffering. A vertiginous picture of self-destruction, seen through the eyes of a man still lucid enough to report to us all the harrowing particulars. Source for a diverting 1984 film directed by John Huston that starred Albert Finney (who was nominated for an Oscar) and Jacqueline Bisset.. Scarce.

Synopsis

Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead in 1938. The novel was precipitated by a short story he wrote after a trip to Mexico with his wife. The story was expanded into a novel completed in 1940, but was rejected and then revised multiple times before finally getting published in 1947. Under the Volcano thoroughly demonstrates Lowry’s highly stylistic writing choices. Drawing heavily upon autobiographical material (Lowry himself was well-known to be an alcoholic), the author amplifies the complexity of the story with unexpected narrative shifts and allusive layers of symbolism. In fact, the complexity of Under the Volcano has been compared with James Joyce’s stylistic masterpiece, Ulysses. The novel was out of print by the time Lowry died of alcoholism in 1957, yet is critically acclaimed today. The Modern Library ranked Under the Volcano eleventh on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. TIME included the book in its list of 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. In 1984, John Huston directed a film adaptation of Under the Volcano. It received Oscar nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Original Score.

Read More: Identifying first editions of Under the Volcano: A Novel.

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Details

Seller
Black Cat Hill Books US (US)
Seller's Inventory #
40265
Title
Under the Volcano: A Novel.
Author
Malcolm Lowry
Format/Binding
Hardcover
Book Condition
Used
Quantity Available
1
Edition
First Ed, unstated.
Publisher
Reynal & Hitchcock,
Place of Publication
New York, NY
Date Published
1947.
Bookseller catalogs
English Literature; British Contemporary Fiction; Modern Fiction First Editions;

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About the Seller

Black Cat Hill Books

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2004
Oregon City, Oregon

About Black Cat Hill Books

Black Cat Hill Books is an Internet-only bookseller.

Glossary

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Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Verso
The page bound on the left side of a book, opposite to the recto page.
Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Heel
The lower most portion of the spine when the book is standing vertically.
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...
Fair
is a worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc....
Good+
A term used to denote a condition a slight grade better than Good.
First State
used in book collecting to refer to a book from the earliest run of a first edition, generally distinguished by a change in some...
Remainder
Book(s) which are sold at a very deep discount to alleviate publisher overstock. Often, though not always, they have a remainder...

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