THE RINGS OF SATURN (First UK edition - first impression - wrappers issue)
W. G. Sebald (Translated from the German by Michael Hulse)
Language: English
Published by The Harvill Press, London, 1998
- First Edition
- Softcover
- Used
Seller: Orlando Booksellers, Lincoln, United KingdomOrlando Booksellers
AbeBooks seller since January 11, 2000
Condition: Used - Very good
£ 35.00
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
First impression of the first UK paperback edition, with the full number-string sequence: 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 on the printer's page. The paperback edition was published simultaneously with a low print-run hardback edition, which was aimed mainly at libraries. Translated from the German by Michael Hulse. Illustrated with black and white photographs throughout. ***Very good in illustrated card covers with integral French-flaps, with black titles to the spine and front cover. The covers are clean and unmarked - just very slightly rubbed. The book would be near fine but for a bump to the bottom outer corner of the page block (please see scans). Corners otherwise sharp. Unusually, there are no reading creases to the spine, and no reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Covers bright and the spine remains completely unfaded (unusual for this title). Page block edges clean, with just a very small indentation to a couple of page edges (hardly noticeable). Internally also near fine with no inscriptions. Pages clean and bright. No creases or tears. Printed on nice quality paper. ***210mm x150mm. 296 pages. ***'"The Rings of Saturn" follows the trail of destruction that human beings have wrought on themselves, and yet it is an unremittingly fascinating blend fiction, autobiography, and history. Its narratives are unfolded with a melancholy ever the domain of Saturn and, like its rings, created from the fragments of shattered worlds.' ***'"The Emigrants" was one of the great books of the last few years and now "The Rings of Saturn" is a similar and as strange a triumph.' - Michael Ondaatje (Quote and review quote taken from the front flap and the back cover respectively) ***A first impression of the first UK wrappers issue of W. G. Sebald's "The Rings of Saturn", published simultaneously with a scarce hardback edition, in very good condition. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.…
Seller Inventory # PB757
- Title
- THE RINGS OF SATURN (First UK edition - first impression - wrappers issue)
- Author
- W. G. Sebald (Translated from the German by Michael Hulse)
- Publisher
- The Harvill Press, London
- Publication year
- 1998
- Condition
- Very Good
- Dust jacket
- No Jacket, as Issued
- Binding
- Original Wraps
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1860463991
- ISBN 13
- 9781860463990
- Edition
- First UK Paperback Edition
- Printing
- First Impression
- Seller catalogs
- First Editions, Literature in Translation
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
The Rings of Saturn is his record of these travels, a phantasmagoria of fragments and memories, fraught with dizzying knowledge and desperation and shadowed by mortality. As in The Emigrants, past and present intermingle: the living come to seem like supernatural apparitions while the dead are vividly present. Exemplary sufferers such as Joseph Conrad and Roger Casement people the author's solitude along with various eccentrics and even an occasional friend. Indeed, one of the most moving chapters concerns his fellow German exile--the writer Mi chael Hamburger.
"How is it that one perceives oneself in another human being or, if not oneself, then one's own precursor?" Sebald asks. "The fact that I first passed through British customs 33 years after Michael, that I am now thinking of giving up teaching as he did, that I am bent over my writing in Norfolk and he in Suffolk, that we both are distrustful of our work and both suffer from an allergy to alcohol--none of these things are particularly strange. But why it was that on my first visit to Michael's house I instantly felt as if I lived or had once lived there, in every respect precisely as he does, I cannot explain. All I know is that I stood spellbound in his high-ceilinged studio room with its north-facing windows in front of the heavy mahogany bureau at which Michael said he no longer worked because the room was so cold, even in midsummer ..."
Sebald seems most struck by those who lived or live quietly in adversity, "the shadow of annihilation" always hanging over them. The appropriately surnamed George Wyndham Le Strange, for example, remained on his vast property in increasing isolation, his life turning into a series of colourful anecdotes. He was "reputed to have been surrounded, in later years, by all manner of feathered creatures: by guinea fowl, pheasants, pigeons and quail, and various kinds of garden and song birds, strutting about him on the floor or flying around in the air. Some said that one summer Le Strange dug a cave in his garden and sat in it day and night like St. Jerome in the desert."
In Sebald's eyes, even the everyday comes to seem extraterrestrial--a vision intensified in Michael Hulse's beautiful rendition. His complex, allusive sentences are encased in several-pages-long paragraphs-- style and subject making for painful, exquisite reading. Though most often hypersensitive to human (and animal) suffering and making few concessions to obligatory cheeriness, Sebald is not without humour. At one point, paralysed by the presence of the past, he admits: "I bought a carton of chips at McDonald's, where I felt like a criminal wanted worldwide as I stood at the brightly lit counter, and ate them as I walked back to my hotel." The Rings of Saturn is a challenging nocturne and the second of Sebald's four books to appear in English. - -Kerry Fried
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Orlando Booksellers
Lincoln, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since January 11, 2000
Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
| Item | 8 to 12 business days | 6 to 8 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 20.00 | £ 25.00 |
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Store description
We specialize in 20th Century literature, and in particular, Modern First Editions. We would be interested in buying such books, whether individual items or collections. We are particularly interested in Bloomsbury writers, Beats & Counter Culture and 20th C photography monographs. Our books can be viewed as a whole on ABE, or by choosing one of a number of catalogues that we have set up for particular interests, such as Crime Fiction & True Crime, Collectable Paperbacks, Children's Literature etc.…
Specialty
Modern First Editions, Literature, Literature in Translation, Bloomsbury Group, Counter-culture, Antiquarian, Collectable Paperbacks, Art & PhotographySeller's business information
Orlando Booksellers
1 Rasen Lane
Lincoln, United Kingdom LN1 3EZ
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