Darkness at Noon
by ARTHUR KOESTLER
- Used
- fair
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Fair/Good-
- ISBN 10
- 0091146100
- ISBN 13
- 9780091146108
- Seller
-
Portland, Dorset, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
"From a prison cell in an unnamed country run by a totalitarian government Rubashov reflects. Once a powerful player in the regime, mercilessly dispensing with anyone who got in the way of his party s aims, Rubashov has had the tables turned on him. He has been arrested and he ll be interrogated, probably tortured and certainly executed." - Koestlerarts. Rare copy. Mustard and black dust jacket. 1973 Danube Edition. Black cloth boards. CONDITION: Used, fair. Ex library book with associated stickers and marks. Dust jacket intact and covered in library poly cover.
Synopsis
Darkness at Noon, by Hungarian-born British writer Arthur Koestler, is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government that he had helped to create. The novel is understood as an allegory to the USSR in 1938, the Great Purge, and the Moscow Trials. However, the text never mentions the Soviet Union or Russia (just “Country of the Revolution” and “Over There”) or Joseph Stalin (only “Number One,” a menacing dictator). Perhaps the lack of specific references is Koestler’s way of making the story seem more universal, but it’s clear he has in mind actual places, people, and events. Koestler was actually a proponent of Marxism-Leninism until Stalin’s 1938 Purge and the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact. Afterwards, he edited an anti-Hitler, anti-Stalin newspaper. Koestler wrote the novel in German while living in Paris, from where he escaped in 1940 just before the Nazi troops arrived. Darkness at Noon owes its publication to the decision of sculptor Daphne Hardy, Koestler’s lover in Paris, to translate the text into English before she herself escaped. Koestler wrote Darkness at Noon as the second part of a trilogy; the first volume is The Gladiators (1939), first published in Hungarian. It is a novel about the subversion of the Spartacus revolt. The third novel is Arrival and Departure (1943), about a refugee during World War II. By then living in London, Koestler wrote the third in English. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Darkness at Noon number eight on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Sidney Kingsley adapted it for Broadway in 1951.
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Details
- Seller
- The Real Book Shop (GB)
- Seller's Inventory #
- 20919
- Title
- Darkness at Noon
- Author
- ARTHUR KOESTLER
- Book Condition
- Used - Fair
- Jacket Condition
- Good-
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- Danube Edition
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 0091146100
- ISBN 13
- 9780091146108
- Publisher
- Hutchinson
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1973
- Keywords
- Dystopian Thriller
- Bookseller catalogs
- Collectable Fiction;
Terms of Sale
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Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Fair
- is a worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc....
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...