The Time of the Dragons

The Viking Press, New York. 1958. Hardcover. Book Club Edition. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: Very Good +; light bump to the top of the front board; light shelfwear to board bottom edges. DJ: Good +; missing small pieces at tail, head, and bottom of rear panel. Blue grained paper over boards and spine with black lettering on the spine. Pictorial endpapers. Tinted textblock top. 436 pp 8vo. Encompassing three generations, the narrative traces the lives of Europeans mainly in the Far East, intermittently in Norway and southern Europe, from the 1920's to and through World War II. Following the fortunes of Knut Wergeland, a Norwegian career diplomat stationed in Shanghai; his three daughters, Astrid, Mailin and Vivics, each by a mother of a different nationality -- French, Chinese and Norwegian; Knut's older sister, Belene, a stern, severe maiden aunt with the familiar heart of gold; and a multitude of characters, most notably, Baron Matsubara, a Japanese aristocrat, a man caught between East and West . This epic-like tale attempts to affirm the continuity of life and family throughout, and in spite of, events of violence and upheaval. This is a great, swirling mass of faces and facts, evolving in eddies of catastrophic politics. A clean very presentable copy in a Brodart mylar jacket. …