"My dear, life rarely gives us what we want at the moment we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually."
FORSTER, E. M. A Passage to India London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1924.
8vo., quarter brown cloth over grey cloth boards, printed paper label to spine; upper edge gilt, else untrimmed; housed in the incredibly scarce original cloth-covered slipcase; pp. [viii], 5-325, [iii], with title printed in black and red; additional paper spine label tipped-in to rear; a crisp copy, outer edges a trifle dusty; a little rubbed to foot of spine; otherwise near-fine, the slipcase split to edges, recently and expertly reinforced. Provenance: Book plate of Robert Elwell to front paste-down; Ex Libris of Jeremy & Penny Martin ffep; The Brick Row Book Shop sticker to gutter of front paste-down.
Limited to just 200 copies, this copy no. 104 signed by the author. This signed limited edition was published in the same year as the first trade edition.
Forster's famous novel deals with the complex themes set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement during the 1920s. Despite being controversial on release due to its depictions of relationships between colonizer and colonized, the book went on to win the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and in modern days holds an important place in discussions of orientalist and postcolonial literature. Time magazine included the novel in its "All Time 100 Novels" list.
#2119877