Caribbean Fiction
A novel
London, Hutchinson New Authors, 1964.
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket.
Orlando Patterson's first novel, set in the Dungle, a Kingston slum built on the city's rubbish dump. Two prostitutes, Dinah and Mary, hope to escape, while a group of Rastafarians waits at the docks for a ship that Haile Selassie has supposedly sent to repatriate them. Drawing on Camus's Myth of Sisyphus, it is seen as a landmark of Caribbean writing. Patterson (b. 1940) became a Harvard sociologist and the author of Slavery and Social Death.
Caribbean Fiction
London, Sands & Co., 1899.
First edition. 8vo. Title printed in red & black. Original (variant?) dark-green cloth illustrated in red and lettered in gilt.
Scarce first edition of this collection of ten short stories by Eden Phillpotts, all set in the Caribbean and most turning on supernatural themes. Published as part of the Universal Library, though this copy's binding does not declare it. Phillpotts, a poet and dramatist, was a friend of Agatha Christie, who dedicated Peril at End House to him.
Caribbean Fiction
London, Michael Joseph, 1954.
First UK edition, first impression. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 15s.
Uncommon in such near fine condition. A novel tracing the experiences of Caribbean migrants arriving in Britain, exploring themes of displacement, identity, and cultural alienation in post-war London. George Lamming was a central figure in Caribbean literature, and The Emigrants is one of his most important novels. Alongside In the Castle of My Skin, it is regarded as a key work in articulating the Windrush generation's experience.