HUMAN TRACES.** [Author SIGNED copy.**]

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,SIGNED,1st edn.FINE/NFINE.No owner inscrptn, but author's handwritten blue ink signature - without dedication - to title page,and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,clean,wrap-around colour photographic illustrated dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Head+foot of spine/ backstrip minimally bumped with reciprocal creasing.Small water(?) stain,internally to both head+foot of dw/dj spine/backstrip - but without affecting boards beneath.Top+fore-edges lightly aged - as usual/normal - but generally clean; contents bright,tight and clean. Bright,clean,publisher's original plain black cloth boards with bright,crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip,and immaculate maroon endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,SIGNED,1st edn,1-614pp [paginated] includes 24 chapters,notes+acknowledgements;plus [unpaginated] half-title,SIGNED title page,a dedication and 2pp blanks at rear. Want more Sebastian FAULKS titles,please search my SIGNED and MODERN FIRSTS2 catalogues. Jacques Rebiere and Thomas Midwinter,both sixteen when the story starts in 1876,come from different countries and contrasting families.They are united by an ambition to understand how the mind works and whether madness is the price we pay for being human.As psychiatrists,their quest takes them from the squalor of the Victorian lunatic asylum to the crowded lecture halls of the renowned Professor Charcot in Paris; from the heights of the Sierra Madre in California to the plains of unexplored Africa.Their search is made urgent by the case of Jacque's brother Olivier,for whose severe illness no name has yet been found.Thomas's sister Sonia becomes the pivotal figure in the volatile relationship between the two men,which threatens to explode with the arrival in their Austrian sanitorium of an enigmatic patient,Fraulein Katharina von A,whose illness epitomises all that divides them.As the concerns of the old century fade and the First World War divides Europe,the novel rises to a climax in which the question of what it means to be alive seems to hang in the balance. This is Faulks's most ambitious novel yet,with scenes of emotional power recalling his most celebrated work,yet set here on an even larger scale.Moving and challenging in equal measure,'Human Traces' explores the question of what kind of beings men and women really are. Since April 2013,again in March 2015,and in this year too,the UK Post Office has altered it's Pricing in Proportion template,altering its prices,weight allowances,dimensions and lowered its qualifying compensation rates too! So,please contact rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,because of the weight/value of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!