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First impression of the true first UK edition. Translated from the Polish by Jane Zielonko. ***Near fine in green cloth-covered boards with gilt titles and ruled lines to the spine. The gilt is still beautifully clean, having been protected by the dustwrapper. The boards are clean and unmarked. Head and tail of spine just slightly creased. Corners sharp. No reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Page block edges clean. Internally also near fine with just a neat ownership name to the top of the front free endpaper. Pages clean. No foxing. There is some light creasing to the top corners of the last few pages, but no serious creases or tears. ***In a near fine original typographically-printed dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's price of 18s. net. The dustwrapper is complete, with virtually no faults - just the lightest rubbing to the edges, and some light marks to the white back panel. There is a very small scuff to the top edge of the spine of the dustwrapper. The dustwrapper presents very well. (please see scans) ***222mm x145mm. Eight-page preface plus 251 printed pages. ***'A first-hand report on the position of the intellectual, the artist, the writer, behind the Iron Curtain. How do these men feel? Here is the answer, given by a man who, though never a Communist Party member, worked for a time willingly for a Communist Party regime. A rising young poet in pre-war Poland, Milosz served in Warsaw from 1946 to 1950 as a member of the Polish Foreign Service before at last breaking with the regime and escaping to live in France. Never before has the world of the mind and spirit under totalitarianism been so convincingly described. The world which Milosz portrays is both nightmare and paradise. The position of the intellectual materially and in social esteem is far better than in the West, but the price to be paid is so high that he "must either die, physically or spiritually, or else be reborn according to a prescribed method. Milosz gives at length four examples of this process, psychological studies of the careers of four top Polish writers who "saw the light" and accepted the New Faith in its entirety. These four studies will be of profound interest to the writers and artists of the West.' (Quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper) ***'"The Captive Mind" is a 1953 work of nonfiction by Polish writer, poet, academic and Nobel laureate Czes?aw Mi?osz. It was first published in English in a translation by Jane Zielonko in 1953. The book was an immediate success that brought Mi?osz international renown. While reading "The Captive Mind", Polish author Witold Gombrowicz, who had been living in Buenos Aires since before the Second World War, had known most of the writers whom Mi?osz described in the coffeehouses and literary cafes of Pre-War Warsaw. As he read, Gombrowicz confided in his diary, "Mi?osz tells the history of the bankruptcy of literature in Poland smoothly, and I ride his book straight through that streamlined cemetery, just as, two days ago, I rode the bus along the asphalt highway. The book is described by historian Norman Davies as a "devastating study" which "totally discredited the cultural and psychological machinery of Communism". The book has been compared to Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" and George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" in that it, too, represents the view of an insider who draws on extensive analysis.' (Wiki) ***First impression of the true first UK edition in beautiful condition. The book itself is very uncommon in first edition, and is almost unobtainable in such a nicely preserved dustwrapper. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc. Seller Inventory # 8780x
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Bibliographic Details
Title: THE CAPTIVE MIND (First UK edition in near ...
Publisher: Secker & Warburg, London
Publication Date: 1953
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Edition: First UK Edition
