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Hughes, Richard.
The Innocent Voyage [A High Wind in Jamaica].
Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London;
Date of Publication: 1929
Stock Code: 15029
First American edition. Octavo, pp., [6], 399, [1]. Publisher’s original block-printed midnight blue and terracotta boards, spine in midnight blue cloth, titled in gilt to spine, block-printed pale blue and cream patterned end-papers. Small, neat contemporary ownership inscription in ink to front free end-paper. In the publisher’s unclipped pictorial jacket, with the original publisher’s sugar-paper wraparound band. Light, even toning to jacket, shelf-wear to head of spine with minor loss, a few spots to wraparound. Shelf-wear to foot of boards, gilt somewhat dulled, binding otherwise strong and square. Contents evenly toned, commensurate with age, but clean. A near-fine copy in like jacket. The author’s first and most famous novel, published first in the US in March 1929, and in September 1929 in Britain as A High Wind in Jamaica. Copies with the dust-jacket are rare, copies with the wraparound are rarer still. The novel depicts a group of Victorian school children who are captured by pirates, who turn out to be more vicious and wicked than their kidnappers. ‘Mr. Hughes is a man of genius’ (New Statesman, quoted on wraparound). £400.00