IN DUSTWRAPPER
The Inheritors
McClure, Philips & Co., 1901.
First edition. The dedication leaf in the usual second state, as a cancel with the correct spelling of Borys. Original buff cloth lettered in black to the spine with an elaborate pictorial design to the upper cover in black, red and gilt, in rare publisher's light brown dustwrapper blocked in black to match the cover design. A fine copy, exceptionally so, in a very good dustwrapper which shows a little wear to the corners and a section excised from the base of the rear flap.
Conrad's first collaboration with Ford Maddox Ford and his first foray into the world of quasi science fiction. At the same time its themes are drawn from the same pool as The Heart of Darkness (published the following year, although around the same time as The Inheritors) in its satire of King Leopold's scheming in the Congo and the colonial exploitation of Greenland labourers.
This is the only copy we have encountered in a dustwrapper and is, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the earliest known example of a Conrad first edition to retain its jacket.
Stock ID: 41757
£30,000.00
