Held (Signed Canadian First Edition and First Printing with Provenance) + Orbital (Signed)

Michaels, Anne; Harvey, Samantha

ISBN 10: 0771005458 / ISBN 13: 9780771005459

Published by McClelland & Stewart Inc., Toronto, ON, 2023

About this Item

A Fine copy signed on the title page by Anne Michaels. Held is the author's first novel since "The Winter Vault" (2009). In very collectible and unread condition. First Canadian edition and first printing, Winner of the 2024 Giller Prize and Finalist for the 2024 Booker Prize. Signing event provenance laid in. Also included with this listing is a copy of the North American First Edition, later printing, of Orbital, signed by Samantha Harvey on the title page. Signing event provenance laid in. Orbital was the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize.

Seller Inventory # 003800

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Held (Signed Canadian First Edition and First Printing with Provenance) + Orbital (Signed)
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Inc., Toronto, ON
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0771005458
• ISBN 13: 9780771005459
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

A breathtaking and mysterious new novel from the beloved Anne Michaels, internationally bestselling author of Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault.

1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast—as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river—alive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his ghosts whose messages he cannot understand .

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later. This resonance through time—not only of actions but also of feelings and perceptions—desire in its many forms—are at the heart of this novel’s profound investigation.

Held is a deeply affecting and intensely beautiful novel, full of unforgettable characters and imagery, wisdom and compassion. It explores the deepest mysteries, and the ways in which desire in its many forms—and perhaps the deepest desire, to find meaning—manifests itself. Held moves through history to light upon Darwin, Sir Ernest Rutherford, North Sea ganseys, early photography, Ella Mary Leather, modern field hospitals…while lovers find each other and snow drifts down across the centuries. From the WW1 battlefield where the novel begins, and its opening lines, Held is alive with "We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?”