A Haunted Land. [Presentation copy, signed]

STOW, Randolph. [Signed]

Published by MacDonald & Co. London, 1956

About this Item

First impression in chipped and edge-worn dustwrapper. Stow's first novel, published when he was 21 years of age, dedicated and signed to the recto of the front free end paper thus: "Dick, Mibs and Margaret - With thanks for your hospitality. I bet you don't approve of it! Your loyal kinsman, 'Mick' Randolph Stow". Very rarely encountered signed, Stow was later to distance himself from his first two novels and for many years would be reluctant to sign copies, so none were proffered by his readers and signed examples are very scarce. Nevertheless, 'A Haunted Land' is critically regarded as an accomplished work embodying many of the themes that would characterise his writing in later years. Anthony Hassall writes that: "Stow combines naturalistic observation of the Western Australian scene with a dreamlike story that is violent, passional, and surreal. The combination made a good many critics, used to more stereotyped novels, uneasy,and they puzzled over its missing of modes, its lack of consistent "realism" and its affinity to "dramatic poetry" and "romance". What they encountered was a spare, primary narrative which built to a bizarre yet inevitable climax." [Strange Country. A Study of Randolph Stow. 1986]. Writing again of 'A Haunted Land' in 2009 Hassall argues that: "This novel began his exploration of the territory he would make his own: a fascinated unease with the landscape of his native Western Australia; the failure to sustain love; and the alienation of the self from a psychic other that it fears but cannot escape. This novel evokes his native landscape with a spare and resonant clarity that few other Australian Writers have matched." [Vanishing Wunderkind: the great oeuvre of the enigmatic Stow, 2009]. Very scarce thus.

Seller Inventory # 3870

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Haunted Land. [Presentation copy, signed]
• Publisher: MacDonald & Co. London
• Publication Date: 1956
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)