signed first edition
1984 · Melbourne
by Garner, Helen
Melbourne: McPhee Gribble, 1984. Signed first edition of Australian novelist Helen Garner's most celebrated novel, tracing the halting, contrapuntal movements of two reunited college classmates and their families over the course of a Melbourne summer. "They both felt it, as a passenger in a jet senses the precise moment at which the zenith of its trajectory is reached and passed. It was not the fact of it, but the suddenness that surprised her. . . . Which of them had dismissed the other?" The Children's Bach has been rediscovered and reissued repeatedly since this first edition was published, most recently by Knopf in 2023. A fine copy, scarce signed by Garner. Single volume, measuring 8.5 x 5.25 inches: [8], 96. Original black textured boards, spine titled in gilt, original unclipped color pictorial dust jacket. Signed by Helen Garner on title page.
(Inventory #: 1003813)