The Twyborn Affair.

WHITE, Patrick.

$975.00

Item Number: 138290

London: Jonathan Cape, 1979.

First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed by Patrick White on the title page. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket drawing by Luciana Arrighi. Jacket design by Mon Mohan.

As in many of White's novels, the main focus is on identity; White views his subject from masculine–feminine, colonial–English, rural–metropolitan, and bourgeois–bohemian polarities. The writing has been described as vivid and painterly in its attention to landscape, and remorseless in its critical dissection of social conventions. The novel is a virtuosic display of White's characteristic "wicked" humour. The Twyborn Affair was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1979, but was removed at the request of the author, that it make way for the work of younger and more deserving writers.