KOESTLER: The Indispensable Intellectual (First edition - first impression)

Michael Scammell

ISBN 10: 0571138535 / ISBN 13: 9780571138531

Published by Faber and Faber, London, 2010

About this Item

First impression of the true first edition with full-number string sequence including the" no. 1": 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 on the printer's page. Illustrated with black and white photographs.

***Near fine in red cloth-covered boards with gilt titles to the spine. The boards are bright, clean and unmarked. Pages block edges clean. No reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Internally also near fine with no previous ownership inscriptions. Pages clean. No creases or tears. ***In a near fine monochrome photo-illustrated dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of £25.00. The dustwrapper has no discernible faults. No creases, chips or tears. No fading. Dustwrapper crisp and bright. ***689 pages including notes and sources and index to rear. 242mm x 158mm.

'Drawing over a hundred interviews and a wealth of new sources (private diaries, unpublished letters, archives of the CIA, MI5, the French Surete, the German and Soviet Communist Parties), Michael Scammell gives a nuanced unsentimental account of Koestler's turbulent public and private life: his drug use, manic depression, the frenetic womanizing that led to an accusation of rape, and the shocking suicide pact with this third wife in 1983. But he also makes the case for Koestler's stature as a major autobiographer and essayist as well as novelist. In doing so he creates a complex and indelible portrait of this brilliant, unpredictable and talented writer, memorably described by one MI5 interrogator, as 'one-third blackguard, one-third lunatic, and one-third genius'. (Quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper)

***First impression of the true first edition, in its original dustwrapper, in beautiful near fine condition. A large bulky book - hard to find in such nice condition. ***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 # 6825

Bibliographic Details

• Title: KOESTLER: The Indispensable Intellectual (First edition - first impression)
• Publisher: Faber and Faber, London
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571138535
• ISBN 13: 9780571138531
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Printing: First Impression
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature
  • First Editions

About this title

Synopsis

Best-known as the author of the classic Darkness at Noon, Koestler was one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals, involved in and commenting on almost every political movement of the twentieth century. As a young man, he was a committed Zionist and moved to Palestine; he was imprisoned and sentenced to death in Franco’s Spain; escaped Occupied France; and was a member of the Communist party for seven years, later becoming one of its fiercest critics with the publication of Darkness at Noon.

Without sentimentality, Scammell gives a full account of Koestler’s turbulent private life: his drug use, manic depression, the frenetic womanizing that doomed his three marriages and led to an accusation of rape, and his startling suicide pact with his wife in 1983. Koestler also gives a full account of the author's voluminous writings, making the case that the autobiographies and essays are fit to stand beside Darkness at Noon as works of lasting literary value.

Michael Scammell creates an indelible portrait of this brilliant, unpredictable, and talented writer, once memorably described as 'one third blackguard, one third lunatic, and one third genius'.

About the Author

Michael Scammell won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for biography in 1985 for his life of Solzhenitsyn, and is the translator of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, and Solzhenitsyn, among many others. He is a former president of PEN American Center and a vice-president of International PEN, and has written regularly for the New York Times Book Review, the New York Review of Books and the New Republic. He teaches non-fiction writing and translation in the School of the Arts at Columbia.