Greene, Graham | Burnt Out Case, presentation copy inscribed by the author

Greene, Graham

A Burnt-Out Case. London: Heinemann, 1960

8vo. Half-title. Publisher's black cloth, spine lettered in silver; light shelf wear. Dust jacket; spine lightly toned, minimal soiling to rear cover. Collector's clamshell box.

First edition, inscribed by the author, apparently after many drinks, "For Graham Greene from Kars".

First published in Swedish the preceding year, Greene's novel set in a leper's colony in remote Africa is "a fascinating study of the relationship of suffering, especially freely accepted suffering — to wholeness" (review in The New York Times, February 1961). It was inspired by Greene's visits to leper colonies in the Congo and the Cameroons, but, as Pike argues, the Africa in A Burnt-Out Case is "more of a idea or state of mind than a real physical location" (Pike, PRETERITUS, p. 66)

REFERENCE:

Wobbe A41a

PROVENANCE:

Kars, presentation copy inscribed by the author; Sotheby's London, 2000, lot 204