Foreign Land (First American Edition)

Jonathan Raban

ISBN 10: 0708983472 / ISBN 13: 9780708983478

Published by Viking, New York, 1985

About this Item

NY: Viking, 1985. First U.S. edition. First printing. Hardbound. Fine in a fine jacket. Remainder stamps lower edges. Quarter cream over gray paper-covered boards, with purple spine lettering. Original price intact on front flap ($16.95). Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. Octavo, 352 pages, cream endpapers. After retiring from a colonial post in West Africa, George Grey returns to England, buys a small sailboat, and sets out alone to sea in a final bid for freedom and self-reinvention. Jonathan Raban (1942 2023) was a British novelist, travel writer, and critic whose works include "Hunting Mister Heartbreak," "Passage to Juneau," and "Waxwings." "Foreign Land" was his first novel and marked his transition from acclaimed travel writing to fiction. F4400.

Seller Inventory # 3134

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Foreign Land (First American Edition)
• Publisher: Viking, New York
• Publication Date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0708983472
• ISBN 13: 9780708983478
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

George Grey has been abroad for 40 years. He returns home nursing a vision of an England that has all but vanished. Everything seems cold and hostile. Moreover, George can't seem to make heads or tails of his only daughter, nor she him. Then George hatches his plan! He will escape--to the sea.

Once embarked, George conjures up his earlier life--and the characters and events of the past become subtly, intricately interwoven with the demons and uncertainties of the present. These confused daydreams counterpoint to his growing command of his boat and love of the sea.

"Engaging, eventful, often very funny and quite beautifully written." (The London Times)

From the Publisher

9 1.5-hour cassettes