A PALE VIEW OF HILLS

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Original pale blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dustwrapper designed by Pentagram. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean and bright throughout. Very light spotting to the upper edge of the page block. Complete with the very near fine dustwrapper, the front panel a touch rubbed to the upper outer corner, with a faint (barely visible) diagonal crease to the upper edge. Not price-clipped (£6.25 net to the front flap). A lovely, sharp copy.

Signed by Kazuo Ishiguro in black ink to the title page. The author's first novel is the the story of Etsuko, a middle-aged Japanese woman living alone in England. Haunted by the recent suicide of her eldest daughter, she recalls and relives a particular summer in Nagasaki after the war. The book is possessed by a eerie note of melancholy unique to its author. It was winner of the 1982 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. "A delicate, ironic, elliptical novel [...] what one remembers is its balance, halfway between elegy and irony." (New York Times Book Review).