Journey Without Maps -
Graham Greene
1936 - William Heinemann Ltd., London - First Edition
A near fine first edition of this most elusive title, Graham Greene’s first travel book, illustrated with 34 black and white photographs taken by him. Listed in National Geographic's 100 Greatest Adventure books.
Shortly after Greene's first child was born in December 1933 he had an impulse to explore Liberia, and over a glass of champagne asked his twenty-three year old cousin to accompany him. The result, according to Norman Sherry, was "one of the best travel books of our time..." (The Life of Graham Greene).
‘A doctor in Freetown, Sierra Leone, P.D. Oakley, sued the publisher, Heinemann, after the book's publication, saying Greene's depiction of a character in the book, called Pa Oakley, also a doctor, was libellous. Heinemann withdrew the book from circulation and pulped the remaining copies’. It took 10 years for a second edition to be printed.’ Greene's first travel book. Several critics suggested that the author's trip to Liberia and the resulting published work mark a change both in his mind and in his fiction. Greene talks of how the journey to Africa is not just back into time or to beginnings, but to a place where elemental power exists without modern sophisticated trappings. When Greene compares the African manifestations of that power with his dreams in the short section 'Mythology' (p.209), he suggests that evil united with Power is more a quality of civilisation.
A second travel book 'The Lawless Roads. A Mexican Journey' was published in 1939, which was followed by the Mexico-based prize-winning novel 'The Power & the Glory' in 1940, both of which bear close relation to Journey Without Maps.
‘Leaving Europe for the first time in his life, Graham Greene set out in 1935 to discover Liberia, then a virtually unmapped republic on the shores of West Africa. This captivating account of his arduous 350-mile journey on foot - a great adventure which took him from the border with Sierra Leone to the Atlantic coast at Grand Bassa - is as much a record of one young man's self-discovery as it is a striking insight into one of the few areas of Africa untouched by Western colonisation. Journey Without Maps is regarded as a masterclass in travel writing’ [{enguin / Paul Theroux]
References: R A Wobbe, Graham Greene, A Bibliography & Guide to Research, A11a. Olivares Leyva, Graham Greene's Narrative in Spain. Dalrymple, “Fever Pitch”, BMJ, 341.
Tall octavo (book size 22.2x15cm), pp. x [2] 296. Publisher's lemon cloth, decorated and titled in brown to spine, publisher’s logo to rear panel in brown, illustrated brown on cream maps for endpapers, top edge tinted red. Condition: Fine, small oatch of abrasion to last page, in near fine cloth, slight toning to outer edges, and spine, corners and spine ends a little bumped. Ref: 112098 Price: HK$ 16,000
Shortly after Greene's first child was born in December 1933 he had an impulse to explore Liberia, and over a glass of champagne asked his twenty-three year old cousin to accompany him. The result, according to Norman Sherry, was "one of the best travel books of our time..." (The Life of Graham Greene).
‘A doctor in Freetown, Sierra Leone, P.D. Oakley, sued the publisher, Heinemann, after the book's publication, saying Greene's depiction of a character in the book, called Pa Oakley, also a doctor, was libellous. Heinemann withdrew the book from circulation and pulped the remaining copies’. It took 10 years for a second edition to be printed.’ Greene's first travel book. Several critics suggested that the author's trip to Liberia and the resulting published work mark a change both in his mind and in his fiction. Greene talks of how the journey to Africa is not just back into time or to beginnings, but to a place where elemental power exists without modern sophisticated trappings. When Greene compares the African manifestations of that power with his dreams in the short section 'Mythology' (p.209), he suggests that evil united with Power is more a quality of civilisation.
A second travel book 'The Lawless Roads. A Mexican Journey' was published in 1939, which was followed by the Mexico-based prize-winning novel 'The Power & the Glory' in 1940, both of which bear close relation to Journey Without Maps.
‘Leaving Europe for the first time in his life, Graham Greene set out in 1935 to discover Liberia, then a virtually unmapped republic on the shores of West Africa. This captivating account of his arduous 350-mile journey on foot - a great adventure which took him from the border with Sierra Leone to the Atlantic coast at Grand Bassa - is as much a record of one young man's self-discovery as it is a striking insight into one of the few areas of Africa untouched by Western colonisation. Journey Without Maps is regarded as a masterclass in travel writing’ [{enguin / Paul Theroux]
References: R A Wobbe, Graham Greene, A Bibliography & Guide to Research, A11a. Olivares Leyva, Graham Greene's Narrative in Spain. Dalrymple, “Fever Pitch”, BMJ, 341.
Tall octavo (book size 22.2x15cm), pp. x [2] 296. Publisher's lemon cloth, decorated and titled in brown to spine, publisher’s logo to rear panel in brown, illustrated brown on cream maps for endpapers, top edge tinted red. Condition: Fine, small oatch of abrasion to last page, in near fine cloth, slight toning to outer edges, and spine, corners and spine ends a little bumped. Ref: 112098 Price: HK$ 16,000