THE ICE AGE.**

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.NMINT/NMINT.No owner inscrptn,and no price-clip to dw/dj.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.NMINT/NMINT.No owner inscrptn,and no price-clip to dw/dj.Glossy,laminated,colour pictorial artwork illustrated dw/dj by Colleen Paynebright,with b/w, author portrait photographic rear wrap; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges - no nicks or tears present - and no sunning/ fading to spine/backstrip as is usual/normal with this edition.Top+ fore-edges bright,clean and near pristine; contents bright,tight and pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners. Immaculate,plain dark blue paper-covered boards with bright, crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain white endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,9-297pp include half- title+title pages. With novels such as 'The Millstone', 'Jerusalem the Golden' and 'The Needle's Eye',Magaret Drabble has firmly established her position as a writer in the forefront of British novelists today. With 'The Ice Age',she has written what many consider her finest work to date (then 1977),a book that is a triumph of incisive but humane irony. Anthony Keating,a rebel against his liberal upbringing,has switched from producing 'social conscious' programmes on television - to property speculation.A spell of enforced idleness at his seventeenth-century North Yorkshire moors home causes him to reappraise the direction in which he is heading.The sour winds of the seventies have blown out some of the spirit of ebullient enterprise of the decade before,and Anthony himself feels threatened from all sides.Alison Murray,the woman that Anthony Keating loves,is suffering the pangs of middle age.Emerging from her marriage to an egocentric actor, and having given up a promising career in acting herself,Alison finds herself torn between the needs of her two daughters: Jane,in prison behind the Iron Curtain,and Molly,whose cerebral palsy necessitates constant care and security.Through Anthony and Alison we are introduced to their families and friends: to Anthony's former wife,the chaotic Babs; to Len Wincobank,Anthony's idol in the whiz-kid property speculation line - now doing time in Scratby Open Prison; to Maureen,Len's cheerful and down-to-earth girlfriend; to Kitty Friedmann,survivor of a restaurant bombing; to Linton Hancox,brilliant classics scholar and poet of talent - twenty years ago.As the events of the novel unfold,Anthony Keating's own searching for more meaning in his life takes a surprising turn when he discovers,by sheer chance,exactly the modus vivendi that can give piquancy to his middle-age angst. In this brilliant tragi-comedy, Margaret Drabble examines the complex spectacle of Britain struggling through the early nineteen seventies.An exceptional copy,in a particularly high grade - the best I've ever handled. Want more Margaret DRABBLE titles? For similar and other available titles,please search my MODERN FIRSTS,MODERN FIRSTS2 and 1001 Book You Must Read Before You Die catalogues. Please contact rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,because of the lighter weight and the value of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!