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BALLARD**, J[ames] Graham]: : THE DAY OF CREATION

LONDON.GOLLANCZ,1987.

ISBN 0575041528.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.VG++/VG++.No owner inscrptn,but price-clip to dw/dj.Bright, crisp,clean,glossy laminated,colour pictorial wrap-around artwork,by Paul Wright,illustrated dw/dj with black+gilt lettering; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Head of spine/backstrip of dw/dj minisculely bumped with reciprocal creasing and some inevitable but light and superficial scoring+ indentation to both panels of dw/dj,with majority of other creasing along it's top edges.Top edges lightly aged/toned and with some minimal dust-soiling spotting, fore-edges brighter and cleaner and much less affected with some minimal,sporadic foxing/spotting; contents bright,tight, clean,solid and sound - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - would appear to be unread.Bright,crisp,generally clean - though there is some light bleeding to internal,rear,lower corner of dw/dj,from concommitant corner of the rear bd,which has at sometime been exposed to moisture,sharp-cornered,publisher's original,plain black cloth bds with bright,crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and near immaculate plain white eps - rear fep excepted,having some minimal foxing/spotting to it's vertical edge.Described hard,but fairly and honestly - nowhere as bad as it reads or sounds.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,5-254pp [paginated] includes contents list/table, 35 chapters,plus [unpaginated] half-title+ title pages,and 2pp blanks at rear. The parched,diseased,impoverished terrain of central Africa,somewhere near the borders of Chad and Sudan,is the locale of Ballard's new novel (then 1987). Doctor Mallory arrives to run a WHO clinic in the small town of Port-la-Nouvelle,but within six months the surges and counter surges of guerilla and paramilitary activity in this forgotten and lawless zone have left him without patients,and he devotes himself instead to the problem of bringing water to the region,dreaming of a third Nile which will bring the Sahara into flower. Then an apparent miracle occurs.In front of Mallory's eyes a tractor extending the local airstrip shifts a huge tree bole,and water bubbles to the surface: first a trickle,but soon a powerful flood.Within days more water has flowed from inland, and a sizable river seems to be forming. There may be a simple explanation - seismic activity in the mountains two hundred miles away has shifted the water table - but to the obsessed Mallory the river is in some way his creation,to be owned by him,to be named after him,and to be explored. . . . On his journey to the source of the River Mallory,the doctor becomes the focus of a strange gaggle of people: Noon, the mysteriously silent adolescent girl, formerly a child recruit to the guerilla army; Professor Sanger,documentary film maker,hoping to revive his faded reputation with despatches from this forgotten and unglamorous corner of Africa with the help of his Indian assistant,Mr Pal; Nora Warrender,widow of a Rhodesian veterinary surgeon,the remains of whose menagerie flourish exotically amid the riverine fertility; and Captain Kagwa and General HArare,leaders of rival "armies" - in reality little more than undernourished and -equipped bandit groups - each dreaming of conquest and secession, wealth and fame. . . . Please contact seller,because of the weight and the value of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.
Not SIGNED.

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