Rathbone, Julian: Joseph. First Edition/First Printing. *Extremely Rare*

 This is a first edition and first printing of Joseph by Julian Rathbone, published by Michael Joseph in 1979.

The book and protected dust jacket are in Near Fine condition with no inscriptions and not price clipped. Not ex-library, nearly all available copies of this book are ex-library so this volume is a very rare find!

Description:

Spain - 1808 to 1813 - where Revolution collides with Reaction, a British Army with a French; the Spain of Goya, where ignorant armies clash and from under them all comes the voice of Joseph: by birth European, by education enlightened, and living in Salamanca which suffered a new invasion every six months and saw one of Wellington's greatest battles. From the moment in early childhood when Joseph hurls a stone at a playmate and makes an evil enemy for life, to the last page when he climbs a hill in North Spain accompanied by a donkey, a giantess, and a new-born babe, and blunders into a battle, he takes the reader by the elbow and hurries him 'will he or will he not' across the terrible years that saw the birth of our own times. Racy, picaresque, but with an underlying seriousness, Joseph is a panoramic novel of the Spanish Penisular War, revealing as Goya did its grotesqueries and ironies as well as its horrifying waste of life. Rathbone's wit, sensitivity and confident grasp of the subject are superbly matched to this brilliant historical scene.

Free delivery on all books within the UK!

*This book will be dispatched the same/next day well protected in bubblewrap and sent in a strong box*