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About This Item
New York: Alfred Knopf, 1940. 1st Edition. Leather. VG+. 8vo. Newly bound in smooth brown calf with dark brown leather title labels to spine. Gilt lettered and decorated. Top edge gilt. Marbled endpapers. Housed in brown cloth slipcase. First edition of the famous novel made into an even more famous movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. Bound in beautiful leather. Great gift.
Synopsis
The tormented and exhausted man at the center of W.R. Burnett's High Sierra is a notorious criminal whom the newspapers call "Mad Dog" Roy Earle. Earle is every bit the criminal the newspapers depict, but he is a complicated soul who is the tragic hero of the novel -- a horribly flawed man, a violent criminal who still retains a bit of a conscience but never gets a decent break.As in most of Burnett's novels, High Sierra ostensibly describes a carefully plotted crime that is undermined by human nature. More interesting and important, perhaps, is its study of Roy Earle, who hardly seems the "Mad Dog" he is made out to be in the press. Pardoned from prison, he idealizes his childhood as he wearily makes his way across the California desert to meet up with two hoods named Red and Babe. Earle is dismayed to find they have with them a tough and brazen woman named Marie, though he begins to warm to her crude charm. He has been moved by the plight of a physically impaired woman he meets, Velma Goodhue, and he resolves to help her -- imagining, somehow, that she will be his. After a holdup he plans with Red, Babe and Marie (who has now fallen in love with him), Earle takes money to Velma for an operation to repair her clubfoot. But the holdup has disastrous results. Red and Babe are killed, and Roy goes on the lam with Marie. They have nowhere to turn and even Velma deserts him. Earle sends Marie away, to meet him eventually in a mountain pass in the High Sierras -- a rendezvous high in the sky that will not take place as planned.Much happens plotwise in High Sierra but it is Roy Earle who holds our interest. As remorseless as the book is -- the concluding chapter consists a few lacerating paragraphs of post-mortem chitchat from the police -- it makes Earle a rich and deeply compelling man, without sentimentalizing him at all. Reading High Sierra is close to the experience of reading James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, a tough, bleak and unforgiving narrative that works a dark and elusive magic.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA
(CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 32588
- Title
- High Sierra
- Author
- BURNETT, W.R
- Format/Binding
- Leather
- Book Condition
- Used - VG+
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 1st Edition
- Publisher
- Alfred Knopf
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1940
Terms of Sale
Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA
Biblio member since 2012
Toronto, Ontario
About Karol Krysik Books, ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA
Interesting and unusual books and printed matter. Visual items, illustrated books, private press, mythology/folklore, modern first editions. Member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Canada (ABAC) and theIndependent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA)
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Calf
- Calf or calf hide is a common form of leather binding. Calf binding is naturally a light brown but there are ways to treat the...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Top Edge Gilt
- Top edge gilt refers to the practice of applying gold or a gold-like finish to the top of the text block (the edges the pages...
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