THE ISLAND OF SHEEP. By Cadmus and Harmonia.
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920. Original blue-grey paper-covered boards decorated in black and ochre and printed in light blue, with yellow cloth spine printed in black, with pictorial dust jacket.
First American Edition, published seven months after the 1919-dated English edition, of one of the scarcer John Buchan books (co-authored by his wife Susan, who, a childhood friend of Virginia Stephen, was an author in her own right). This book is not to be confused with his entirely-different 1936 Richard Hannay mystery for which he used the exact same title (though titled THE MAN FROM THE NORLANDS in the U.S.). This earlier title, pseudonymously published, is instead a fictional discussion of political, economic and social issues of the time (such as the Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations, and labor issues).
A number of characters -- landowner, Labour M.P., journalist, captain of industry, parish minister... -- meet at a shooting-lodge on a Scottish island to discuss the post-war world... Peace has been bought with millions of lives; what is to be made of it?... The summing-up is given to the minister: "Politics are a collection of views, most of them contradictory, and nearly all of them true. Statesmanship means admitting the contradictions and paying due respect to the half-truths and trying to harmonise them. The fool seizes on a half-truth, and exaggerates it and pretends it is the whole truth and the only truth" [J.A. Smith].
An appropriate summing-up more than a century later!
This is a fine, bright copy (a few tiny speckles on the yellow spine); included is the very scarce dust jacket, with the same front cover design as the book's -- remarkably fine as well. Undoubtedly, a low number of copies were printed, of a book with this subject matter: in our experience it is quite a scarce book, and copies in this condition are seldom encountered. See Blanchard A48. Item #15512
Price: $325.00