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BLIXEN,
Karen
Out
of Africa
Putnam,
London,
1937
First
edition
Octavo
Described as an autobiographical
novel, the narrator does not however
reveal her name, but is in fact a Danish woman who runs a coffee farm
near Nairobi during the dying years of Colonialism.
As the narrator shares
her memories of Africa, she draws
a landscape that resembles
a utopian ideal. On her own farm, she lives in unity with the natives
and even some of the animals: one of these, a domesticated
bushbuck antelope
called Lulu, comes to live with them, which symbolizes the connection of
the farm to its landscape. The narrator in general idealizes
Africa as superior to Europe to an extent because it exists in a more
pure form, without the modernizing influence of culture. As such, Africa
is closer to what God initially intended, when he created man; it
appears like a true Eden.
Stylishly bound
in
black
morocco with hand stencilled Japanese endpapers of trees,
with gilt edges, and a hand tooled gilt design of antelopes
on the African plain, with an onlay of a crimson sunset across the
spine. The book is held in a matching black leather
entry slipcase.
BKBLIX..001
£1,650.00 |
