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The Razor's Edge
by Maugham, W. Somerset
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good- in Very Good- dust jacket
- Seller
-
Dunedin, New Zealand, New Zealand
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Heinemann. Very Good- in Very Good- dust jacket. (1944). First Edition. Hardcover. Small contemporary New Zealand bookseller's label on front endpaper. No signatures. Some spots of foxing to top page edges. Fading to the green spine and front panel of the dust-jacket, the green on the front panel fading to a patchy yellow in parts. A 10mm and a few 4mm tears at head of dust-jacket spine. Dust-jacket is price-clipped. Dust-jacket protected in archival mylar cover.; First UK edition. [iv], 284 pages. Blue cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine and front board, small gilt razor illustration on front board. Page dimensions: 182 x 122mm. War economy standard. Copyright page has "Printed in Great Britain at the Windmill Press / Kingswood, Surrey". A novel. "I have never begun a novel with more misgiving." - the opening sentence. Page126 without an "a" before "gossip" in the phrase "glad to have gossip." Rear flap of dust-jacket with advertisement for "The Voice of Britain " broadcasts. Rear panel of dust-jacket with advertisements for "Japan's Islands of Mystery", "Strange Vigour" and "Pipeline to Battle". "Social satire, philosophical novel, and saint's life, 'The Razor's Edge' describes the spiritual quest of an extraordinary young American." - Diana Gobel, in Peter Boxall (editor) (2006) "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die," p. 426. .
Synopsis
The Razor's Edge , by W. Somerset Maugham, first published by Doubleday Doran in the United States in 1944, relates the experiences of a World War I pilot, Larry Darrell, who chooses to embrace a counter-cultural lifestyle as a way of dealing with his PTSD, though the syndrome is of course not identified as such in the book. This book challenges the cultural ideals of the 1940s, and disregards the stereotype of the returning military hero. Some controversy surrounded the publication of this book because of its lack of patriotic fervor and its embrace of bohemian ideals, but today it is regarded as one of the more important pieces of American literature from the 1940s. -
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Details
- Bookseller
- Renaissance Books
(NZ)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 22840
- Title
- The Razor's Edge
- Author
- Maugham, W. Somerset
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good- in Very Good- dust jacket
- Edition
- First Edition
- Publisher
- Heinemann
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- (1944)
- Keywords
- English Literature
Terms of Sale
Renaissance Books
Any book not as described may be returned within 14 days of receipt for a full refund.
About the Seller
Renaissance Books
Biblio member since 2005
Dunedin, New Zealand
About Renaissance Books
We are located in Dunedin, in the South Island of New Zealand. We have in stock over 8,500 books. We are a general antiquarian and out-of-print home-based bookseller, with some specialty areas in English literature, Maori, Travel, Tibet, and New Zealand history.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Copyright page
- The page in a book that describes the lineage of that book, typically including the book's author, publisher, date of...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
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