The Three L's, or, Lawyers, Land-Jobbers, and Lovers. A Tale of South Australia Twenty Years Ago
Adelaide, Printed by Webb, Vardon, and Pritchard [for the Author], 1882.
Octavo, [ii] (title page, verso blank), vi (preface, last blank), [9]-343 pages.
Original olive-green cloth lettered in gilt on the spine and ruled and decorated in blind on the sides; cloth a little marked, flecked and rubbed, with light wear to the extremities and minimal conservation to the spine; front board slightly bowed; edges a little marked; textblock reinserted in the binding, with the original endpapers retained and reinforced along the inner hinges with cloth of a similar colour; the front flyleaf has a short sealed tear and some residual glue on the recto (it had been stuck fast to the pastedown, and now has a tendency to curl a little), and there are a few numerical annotations and the early ownership signatures of Carl D. and C.O. Lundberg; minimal signs of use and age internally; a very good copy of a great rarity.
'Essential; an important regional novel and nearly a comic masterpiece' states Depasquale ('A Critical History of South Australian Literature, 1836-1930'); 'a rambling, episodic, undisciplined novel, part romance, part satire, part detective novel and ... part didactic religious novel'. The five-page introduction by the anonymous author is instructive, as are the five pages Depasquale devotes to the work. The novel is set in the mid-north of South Australia; the author notes that Emu Flat, the place at which the story begins, is 'about four miles S.W. of Clare'. The verso of the front flyleaf carries the later inkstamp of Tyrrell's Bookshop, Gawler Place (Adelaide).
Item #112707
Price (AUD):
$1,100.00