Woman in the Mists 1987 First Edition Dian Fossey Gorillas

Publisher's quarter black cloth over gray-green paper covered boards, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, in the original photographic dust jacket with the price intact. The copyright page explicitly states "First Printing: October 1987" and carries the complete 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 number line, conclusively establishing this as the American first edition/first printing. The work appeared in Canada under the different title Virung:: The Passion of Dian Fossey. Bibliographic records confirm the Warner edition at 380 pages. Published less than two years after Dian Fossey's 1985 murder, Mowat's biography is particularly interesting because he did not approach it simply as an outside biographer. As his Author's Note explains, associate Wade Rowland located Fossey's extensive personal archives - correspondence, journals, unpublished writings, observations, and documents - and Mowat deliberately constructed much of the narrative around Fossey's own surviving words. The volume is richly illustrated with archival and color photographs and unusually informative cartographic material, including the Parc National des Volcans/Virunga region, a detailed plan of Fossey's cabin, and a double-page reconstruction of the Karisoke Research Center based on Ian Redmond's recollections. Condition: Near Fine/Near Fine dust jacket. Binding is firm and square, gilt spine lettering remains bright, and the interior appears exceptionally clean. There is a handsome but non-authorial ownership bookplate on the front pastedown reading "It was a dark and stormy night when this book disappeared from: LINDA DORAN." An area on the upper right first free endpaper is likely a previous owner's name covered in white-out. Otherwise, the maps, photographic sections and text are very well preserved. The original jacket shows light rubbing/scuffing and modest edge/corner wear but remains bright and complete with the price intact. It is protected in a Bro-Dart archival jacket cover. There are two less obvious design features here. Giorgetta Bell McRee receives explicit credit for both the book design and map illustrations. She was not an incidental cartographer: bibliographic records show McRee continuing to design books for Warner into the late 1990s, including major commercial titles. Her contribution is particularly visible here in the striking chapter numerals, triangular Virunga-inspired ornaments, and the exceptionally detailed maps and site plans. The jacket photograph is credited to Robert Campbell, while the jacket states "Jacket design courtesy of Geri Bauer (Design fee donated to the William Holden Wildlife Foundation)." That last credit gives the physical book a small but appealing conservation connection beyond its subject matter - the jacket design itself was associated with a donation to a wildlife organization. There is also an interesting historical proximity to Fossey herself: this book was published in October 1987, only about twenty-two months after her death. It therefore belongs to the first wave of substantial posthumous attempts to interpret her life, before the popular image of Fossey became even more firmly established by the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist. Mowat's access to her personal archive makes this much more than a generic celebrity biography. Farley Mowat (1921-2014) was one of Canada's most widely read writers of natural history, environmental literature, memoir, and adventure. Beginning with People of the Deer (1952), he produced more than thirty-five books. His writing frequently combined personal observation, narrative storytelling, and outspoken advocacy for wildlife and threatened environments; Lost in the Barrens received Canada's Governor General's Award, and Mowat was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1981.…