"ESTABLISHED HIM AS ONE OF HIS GENERATION'S RANKING TRAVEL WRITERS": FIRST EDITION OF BRUCE CHATWIN'S FIRST BOOK, IN PATAGONIA
CHATWIN, Bruce. In Patagonia. London: Jonathan Cape, (1977). Octavo, original navy paper-covered boards, cartographic endpapers, original dust jacket.
First edition of Chatwin's award-winning first book that revolutionized travel writing in "its originality and its brilliance" (Paris Review), with illustrations not included in the later American edition, in original dust jacket.
Chatwin's In Patagonia, his first book, "established him as one of his generation's ranking travel writers and an elegant literary craftsman and storyteller… When he was 33 Chatwin was hired by the magazine of The Sunday Times of London, which allowed him to go anywhere he chose to get material for articles on a wide variety of subjects. On an impulse, he decided to go to South America and when he got there severed himself from the newspaper with a cable: 'Have gone to Patagonia'" (New York Times). Chatwin's debut work is, as well, a hybrid of "history, and myth and imagination—the blend of which contributes to its originality and its brilliance" (Paris Review). "First printed 1977" on copyright page. With frontispiece map; eight pages of black-and-white photographic illustrations (not included in the subsequent American edition).
Fine condition.