Loss of El Dorado, The – V. S. Naipaul
NF/NF

Description

For sale: a rare and exceptional first edition, First printing of The Loss of El Dorado by V. S. Naipaul, protected in a archival wrap. First Trade Edition stated, 1970 Knopf, First Printing with 1970 on title page and no subsequent printing and no ISBN on the 1969 dated copyright page.

The book is in Near Fine condition with bright boards, strong title gilt on a heavily foxed/spotted spine. Also, clean page blocks, tight binding, mild spine tilt, lightly rolled spine ends, mild edge wear, and lightly rubbed corners. The interior of the book is also in Near Fine condition with the previous owner’s name, city and date on the first free end paper and the ghosts of erased prices on the second free end paper. No other marks, inscriptions, or other signs of ownership. The end papers and the interior pages are clean and bright, making it an excellent addition to any collection.

The dust jacket is in Near Fine condition with mild surface and edge wear. First state jacket with $7.50 price on front flap and 4/70 date code on rear flap. Looks great in a Brodart archival wrap.

The history of Trinidad begins with a delusion: the belief that somewhere nearby on the South American mainland lay El Dorado, the mythical kingdom of gold. In this extraordinary and often gripping book, V. S. Naipaul–himself a native of Trinidad–shows how that delusion drew a small island into the vortex of world events, making it the object of Spanish and English colonial designs and a mecca for treasure-seekers, slave-traders, and revolutionaries. Amid massacres and poisonings, plunder and multinational intrigue, two themes emerge: the grinding down of the Aborigines during the long rivalries of the El Dorado quest and, two hundred years later, the man-made horror of slavery. An accumulation of casual, awful detail takes us as close as we can get to day-to-day life in the slave colony, where, in spite of various titles of nobility, only an opportunistic, near-lawless community exists, always fearful of slave suicide or poison, of African sorcery and revolt. Naipaul tells this labyrinthine story with assurance, withering irony, and lively sympathy. The result is historical writing at its highest level.

Ships promptly in corrugated mailer with book wrapped in both craft paper and multiple layers of bubble wrap.