Nostromo : A Tale of the Seaboard
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1904. First American edition, first printing. Green cloth decoratively stamped in gilt, rust and black. Owners' bookplates front pastedown, small spot of soiling front pastedown and ffep. Light rubbing to bottom edge with several shallow wrinkles on spine cloth, else near fine. Bright, clean copy in custom mylar cover. Item #181219
MORAL TESTING AMIDST REVOLUTION
Acclaimed Polish-English writer Joseph Conrad spent about 20 years at sea, collecting inspiration for his future writings. In the Author’s Note to the new 1918 edition, Conrad shared the memory of a story he heard as a young sailor of a theft of “a whole lighter-full of silver” along the coast. This nugget sat in his mind until almost 30 years later, he read again of the incident in a few pages of the sailor’s autobiography. It germinated into this 1904 novel, Nostromo, set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana. However, this is more than a story of stolen treasure but a tale of the moral corruption that can occur to even the most upright of characters in the midst of a revolutionary atmosphere.
This 1904 first American edition is one of 1,000 printed. [Wise 15].
Price: $400.00