On the Black Hill [Signed]

London: Jonathan Cape, 1982. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+/Fine-. First Impression. 8vo: 248,[2]pp. Publisher's slate grey cloth, spine stamped in gilt, wraparound pictorial dust jacket, by Mon Mohan, unclipped and unpriced (one of the export copies Jonathan Cape issued; priced copies include the exception, "UK only"). Signed by Chatwin (without dedication) on title page. Presented the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1982 and the Whitbread First Novel of the Year Award (there is debate as to whether Chatwin's The Viceroy of Ouidah, a fictionalized account of an actual eighteenth-century Brazilian slave trader, published two year before On the Black Hill, should be considered fiction or nonfiction). Near Fine or better (spine tips bumped, stray spot or two to top and fore-edges, short, thin ink line to bottom edge of front cover); About Fine jacket (lightly nicked to one flap fold). Chatwin's first novel (and third book), "written in the tradition of Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence, revives the almost forgotten genre of the pastoral [as it] follows the lives of identical twins [Benjamin and Lewis Jones] whose experience provides a miniature-like perspective on twentieth-century history far from the madding crowd, wars, and disasters. . . . A stage version by Charles Way was first performed in 1986, and in 1987 director Andrew Grieve turned the taciturn pastoral into a successful film version with two Welsh actors, Mike and Robert Gwilym, as Lewis and Benjamin Jones, and hundreds of Radnorshire residents participating as extras." (Literary Encyclopedia) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed.