Books

First edition, first impression, first issue, with map endpapers, of the author's first and most acclaimed book, the winner of the 1977 Hawthornden prize and E. M. Forster award. In Patagonia is an imaginative investigation of that remote region of Argentina, which mixes "crisp description with anthropology, biography, and history, relishing strange encounters and esoteric facts, and rendering these in a spare elliptical prose" (ODNB). Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989) was an English travel writer and journalist whose varied non-fiction work helped to redefine modern travel writing. He was also an acclaimed novelist; in 1982 he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel for On the Black Hill, and in 1988 he was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novel Utz. Octavo. Original blue boards, spine lettered in gilt, blue map endpapers. With dust jacket. Map frontispiece, 4 double-sided photographic plates. Slight lean to spine, foxing to edges, internally clean. A near-fine copy in like dust jacket, price-clipped, spine notably less faded than usual, a little spotting to flaps, a sharp example.

In Patagonia is Bruce Chatwin's exquisite account of his journey through the fascinating region of Patagonia, combining history, anecdote, and keen observation as he reflects on the nature of travel and the human desire for adventure.