The Rover
Price: $85.00
Hardcover. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923. 1st Edition. Near Fine.
First edition, first printing, first state, with missing quotation mark before the word "That's" on p. 219, line 29. Publisher's dark blue cloth, with spine lettered in gilt, and front board decorated in gilt; in its original pale blue dust jacket, printed in darker blue, with $2.00 price to front flap. Near fine book, with a hint of rubbing to spine ends, slightly dusty top edge and bottom edge of text block, bookseller's description tipped in to front endpapers, a touch of thumbsoiling to front and verso of half-title page, else crisp and bright; very good unclipped dust jacket, with light toning to spine, light thumbsoiling to front and rear panels, some light marks to spine, mild rubbing to joints and spine ends, a small closed tear to bottom edge of rear panel, and a small closed tear to front and rear flap folds. Overall, a handsome copy. The Rover, Conrad's final completed novel, tells the story of Jean Peyrol, an old French sailor who has lived an adventure-filled life at sea and comes to a farmhouse in Toulon to retire and live peacefully. Some years later, Napoleon is rising to power and Peyrol embarks on one more adventure for his country. The book includes an epitaph on the title page from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene: "Sleep after toyle, port after stormy seas, / Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please." The same epitaph is written on Conrad's headstone in Canterbury Cemetery. Item #JC107
