The Young Concubine

New York: Random House, 1942. Book. Very Good+. Hardcover. Stated First printing.. New York: Random House, 1942. Stated First Printing. Very Good+/Very Good+. First Edition, First Printing (Stated "First Printing" on copyright page). Unfaded black cloth boards with unchipped gold lettering on cover and spine. Light soiling (very small faint water spots to cloth boards). Hint of light surface wear to corners, no fraying. Binding is tight & square, no cracking. Pages and edges are clean, with clean, slightly faded red top-stained page edges. Clean endpapers; no names, writing or bookplates. 282 pgs. Unfaded illustrated bright yellow dustjacket has a few short closed edge tears, no chips or missing pieces, not price clipped (2.00 on front inside flap), slightest hint of soiling. Enclosed in new archival quality mylar cover. Very scarce book which won the 1939 All-Nations Prize Novel Competition. Set mainly in Cambodia, and by a writer of half-French and half-Cambodian parentage, this is the story of Princess Atman, who, herself a child, sees her royal father take to his bosom a favorite only ten years old. Living in an unnatural and decadent world of mystic rituals, incantations, cruelty and beauty, Atman comes to identify herself with this child, with nature and with God. Despite her later education in Paris, she never throws off the psychological influences on her early life. Her struggle to resolve the conflicting claims of East and West makes a novel of hypnotic interest, whose daringly exotic theme is handled with great delicacy and beauty. 5-1/2" x 8-1/4". Fiction..