{"product_id":"william-golding-s-the-inheritors-the-first-american-edition","title":"William Golding’s The Inheritors: The First American Edition","description":"\u003cp class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWilliam Golding’s second novel turns the history of humanity upside down.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchor\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGOLDING, William (1911–1993). \u003cem\u003eThe Inheritors.\u003c\/em\u003e New York: Harcourt, Brace \u0026amp; World, Inc., 1962.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFIRST AMERICAN EDITION\u003c\/strong\u003e, expressly so stated on the copyright page. In the original Alfred Zalon-designed dust jacket, retaining the publisher’s $4.50 price.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeven years after \u003cem\u003eLord of the Flies\u003c\/em\u003e, American readers encountered Golding’s extraordinary second novel: a story about the disappearance of the Neanderthals told largely from the side of those who disappear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"\"\u003eA small group of Neanderthals encounters another kind of human being. The newcomers are ingenious, technologically capable and frighteningly difficult for the Neanderthals to understand. Gradually, Golding allows us to recognize them for what they are: Homo sapiens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reversal is the heart of the book. Human evolution, usually narrated as ascent and progress, is experienced here by the people it destroys. Golding’s Neanderthals are communal and largely innocent of deliberate violence; the supposedly more advanced newcomers bring imagination and invention, but also calculation, fear and cruelty.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGolding announces the argument before the novel even begins. His epigraph comes from H. G. Wells’s \u003cem\u003eThe Outline of History\u003c\/em\u003e, with its old characterization of Neanderthals as ugly, brutish and possibly cannibalistic. \u003cem\u003eThe Inheritors\u003c\/em\u003e proceeds to dismantle that image, leaving the reader to wonder which species deserves to be called primitive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was the novel Golding wrote immediately after \u003cem\u003eLord of the Flies\u003c\/em\u003e, and one he regarded particularly highly. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOriginal black cloth in the original pictorial dust jacket designed by Alfred Zalon, with the original \u003cstrong\u003e$4.50 price intact\u003c\/strong\u003e on the front flap. Rear jacket panel with a portrait of Golding by Lewis O. Thompson.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e Very good. Binding sound and contents clean overall. Dust jacket with rubbing, surface and edge wear, creasing, and small chips and short tears at the extremities; substantially complete and protected in a removable archival sleeve. Contemporary gift inscription on the front free endpaper, dated Christmas 1975.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47250156617916,"sku":null,"price":80.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0736\/1285\/3436\/files\/1300508.jpg?v=1786133061","url":"https:\/\/atelierzweig.com\/products\/william-golding-s-the-inheritors-the-first-american-edition","provider":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}