IN THE VIBRANT JOHN MINTON DUSTWRAPPER

MUCHA, Jiri; E. OSERS [Trans.] ~ Scorched Crop.

FIRST UK PRINTING. The Hogarth Press, London: 1949.

8vo., grey-blue boards, lettered and decorated in pale yellow to spine; together in the unclipped pictorial dustwrapper (9s. 6d. net to front flap) featuring a wonderful design of a man walking away from a burning city, in black and yellow, by John Minton; upper edge stained yellow; THE BOOK near-fine, slightly bruised at foot of spine with the odd spot to the boards or outer edges of text block; else clean and bright internally; the fabulous DUSTWRAPPER also near-fine, a little rubbed along folds and a touch darkened at the backstrip, a little nicked and chipped at head of spine and front flap with a couple of miniscule portions of loss, but otherwise retaining much of its colour and vivacity, completely unrestored. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition, translated from the Czech by E. Osers. The fourth novel (the second to be published in English) by the son of painter, illustrator and graphic artist Alphonse Mucha. Jiri Mucha (1915-1991) was born in Prague, and was working in Paris when the Nazi's occupied Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939. Following the fall of France he travelled to the UK, where he joined the RAF and became a war correspondent for the BBC. Arrested by the country's Communist government for alleged espionage in 1951, he was sentenced to hard labor at the Jáchymov uranium mines. He was released in 1955. Many of Mucha's works are autobiographical, reflecting on the remarkable experiences which permeated his life. The present work is no exception, and reflects on his experiences of marriage, its happiness and his experiences of guilt during a period of great hardship for Europe during the Second World War. Scarce with the John Minton dustwrapper in such exceptional condition.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Near Fine