Her debut novel.

TREMAIN, Rose ~ Sadler’s Birthday. Signed by the author.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Macdonald and Jane's, London: 1976.

8vo., brown boards lettered in red to spine; in the red, pink, brown and white printed dustwrapper (unclipped, printed price of £3.50 to the front flap); THE BOOK, aside from faint spotting to the fore-edge, near fine; THE WRAPPER also near fine, with a just a couple of creases and marks. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition. This example signed by the author in black pen to the title page. Tremain's first novel, which takes as its protagonist an old man, Jack Sadler, who lives as the last remaining sole inheritor of a grand estate. The book opens with the protagonist's birthday, an event which causes him to re-investigate the past, and delve into the wealth of memories and past experiences, shared with the reader through a series of flashbacks to his childhood and time working as a butler during the Second World War. There, he forms a close and binding relationship with a young evacuee. Tremain's early career began in non-fiction, with much of her writing focusing on women's suffrage. Her first novel, "established [her] reputation as a chronicler of despair and loneliness" (Britannica), with her subsequent works similarly following isolated characters who have to confront sometimes painful truths within their lives. Tremain went on to win numerous prizes for novels including 'Music & Silence', (Whitbread Award, 1999), and 'The Road Home', (winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, later renamed the Women’s Prize for Fiction) in 2007. The same year, she was awarded a CBE, and in 2020 she was made a Dame. A lovely, bright copy of the author's debut work, scarce in this condition.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Near Fine