Crusoes of Sunday Island

London: G. Bell and Sons. Very Good in Good+ dust jacket. (1957). First Edition. Hardcover. No signatures. Some spots of foxing. Some foxing to dust-jacket. Some 8mm tears and 5mm chip at head and tail of dust-jacket spine. Dust-jacket is price-clipped.Dust-jacket protected in archival mylar cover.; First printing. 189, [3 (blank)] pages + 11 illustrations on 4 plate leaves. 1 full page map "Raoul or Sunday Island". Blue boards with dark blue lettering on spine. Page dimensions: 197 x 130mm. Dust-jacket art by Douglas Relf, from a sketch by Roger Denly. This 1957 first edition of "Crusoes of Sunday Island" has fewer illustrations than the later 1964 New Zealand edition (which has 23 illustratons on 8 plate leaves), but the illustrations are printed more clearly, and some of the illustrations in the 1957 edition are not in the 1964 edition. "Crusoes of Sunday Island is a factual account of the experiences and adventures of the Bell family on Sunday Island presented in story form [. . .] Mrs. Dyke, now in her eighty-ninth year, possesses a remarkable memory, and has told in full detail the story of her extraordinary childhood and of her parents heart-braking misfortunes in the early years of their Sunday Island sojourn. [. . .] This story of an actual family's adventures obviously cannot be compared as a work of literature with Robinson Crusoe nor with the uninhibited invention of The Swiss Family Robinson. But I hope that its authenticity may win it a place of its own in the never-too-full shelf of desert island books. The interest of the Bell saga lies in its grim realism, from the day Thomas Bell landed with his family on Sunday Island's surf-swept shore to his embittered departure thirty-five years later." - from the Author's Note. Contents: Author's Note; A Kingdom for the Taking; Heading South; The Landing; The First Day and After; A Night in the Oven; The Watch for the Norval; The Ship; North Beach; The Dream takes Shape; Storm, Shakespeare and Careers; Birds, Whales and Sharks; The Green Island Kingdom; Whisky, Serpents and Parakeets; The Annexation; The Cyclone and the End; Afterwards. .