8vo. 317pp. Original publisher's gilt-tooled green cloth boards, blind-stamped to front, with the original pictorial unclipped dustwrapper. Spine a trifle cocked, boards a little rubbed with some wear to the front hinge. Internally bright save light toning, with the ownership plate of Alfred Pounder to the front pastedown, penned red. Dustwrapper is bright with some light losses, a nick to the spine, top and bottom edge strengthened with craft tape to verso.

The first edition of John Buchan's last novel, published posthumously. One of Buchan's most spiritual novels, it follows his semi-autobiographical protagonist Sir Edward Leithen - who has appeared in several previous novels - through the Sick Heart River Territory, based on the real Nahanni River in Canada's Northwest Territories.

John Buchan (1875-1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician, best remembered for his subterfuge thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), and serving as Governor General of Canada from 1935 to his death after a fall in 1940.