HAMILTON, Patrick. The Slaves of Solitude.

“the greatest of all Patrick Hamilton's books” (Doris Lessing).

HAMILTON, Patrick. The Slaves of Solitude. London: Constable, 1947.

8vo. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to spine, in the unclipped dustwrapper priced 9/6 net to the front flap; pp. [4], 242, [2]; lower spine tip rubbed, jacket rubbed and nicked to spine tips and corners with loss to upper spine tip; a near fine copy, in a very good, notably bright, wrapper.

A crisp, sharp first edition, first printing of arguably the finest of Hamilton’s novels.

The Slaves of Solitude is “one of the very best English novels written about th[e] war– yet it contains no descriptions of combat or death and destruction caused by warfare” (David Lodge). Set in 1943 in the fictional town of Thames Lockdon (essentially Henley-on-Thames), the novel follows the experiences of Miss Roach, living in the Rosamund Tea Rooms, a guest house, having left London during the Blitz. A “slave of her task-master, solitude”, something shifts with the appearance at the guest house of a charismatic American Lieutenant.

SKU: 2123713