The Jacaranda Tree (signed copy)

First edition, first printing. Hardback in dustwrapper. 20.5 × 13cm, 223pp. Signed directly to the title page by H E Bates. During World War II, a small English community are forced to flee when Japanese forces invade Burma. Paterson, the manager of a rice-mill, organises the evacuation and takes with him his Burmese mistress and her young brother. The rest of the party take along their prejudices, their pettiness and their squabbles, and a small enclave of English insularity moves north through Burma. Inevitably, as the journey continues, bitterness, tension and insoluble conflict unfold. Condition: A good copy. The dustwrapper is chipped to the spine ends and corners but has not been price-clipped and is now within a protective sleeve. The book has blue cloth binding which is heavily sunned to the spine. Light spotted foxing to title page but otherwise the text is in good, clean readable condition, faint remnants of a label to the pastedowns. And there is a hint of a lean to the spine. However, it remains in strong readable condition and one of H E Bates's most enduring novels.…