Matthew Kneale ENGLISH PASSENGERS First Edition Signed

First edition first print hardback of ENGLISH PASSENGERS by Matthew Kneale and published by Hamish Hamilton in 2000. Signed by Kneale on the title page. Full numberline: 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2. Winner of the 2000 Whitbread Book of the Year. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000.

The book is in very good condition (maroon cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine) with light creasing to the head and tail of the spine and some age tanning around the page edges. The book is in a very good unclipped dust jacket which has light creasing to the top edge. Internally the pages are otherwise clean and tight and there are no tears or other inscriptions.

Determined to prove the literal truth of the Bible against atheist geologists, the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson sets out from England, in the summer of 1857, with an expedition to find the Garden of Eden, which he is convinced lies on the island of Tasmania. Unknown to him, others in the party have very different agendas, notably the surgeon, Dr Potter, who is developing a revolutionary and sinister thesis of his own on the races of man. To complicate matters further, the ship Wilson has hurriedly chartered, crewed by Captain Kewley and his secretive Manxmen, is in fact an ill-starred smuggling vessel, its hidden compartments filled with contraband brandy and tobacco. As the vessel journeys haplessly southwards, in Tasmania itself an Aboriginal named Peevay recounts his peoples struggle against the invading British, who prove as lethal in their good intentions as in their cruelty. This is no Eden but a world of hunting parties and colonial ethnic cleansing. As the English passengers near Peevays land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, it grows clear that a mighty collision is approaching. 

463 pages including Appendices and Acknowledgements.

ISBN: 0241140684

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