Hers

265 pages. Octavo (8 3/4" x 6") bound in original publisher's quarter black cloth with gilt lettering to spine over white boards with gilt design to board in original pictorial jacket. First edition. Julie Stone is a young German woman who, losing her father in the Nazi persecutions, finds herself in post-war England, married to a successful professor and the mother of two children. She enjoys the life of the campus, but the facts of her past and of her husband Charles's age, which is nearly twice hers, finally start to take their toll, leading her to an affair with a young student called Sam, which in turn leads all three to new thresholds in their life. This is a very small story where you fancy that friends of Alvarez may have recognized themselves among the cast. There is some pathos surrounding the pompous, portly figure of Charles, but the young lovers Julie and Sam are for the most part dull and not particularly likable figures. Julie's past is indistinct, and though the plot seems to chase it towards a personal resolution, ultimately this is superfluous to her unfaithfulness, or to the themes about generational divides. Condition: Corners bumped. Jacket spine extremities creased, covers lightly soiled.…