IN PATAGONIA

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original navy cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. Map endpapers. Map frontispiece and 14 black and white photographs by the author. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh, with some bumping to the spine tips. The contents, with mild toning to the closed text block edge, are clean throughout, and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the lightly rubbed, nicked and creased, price-clipped dustwrapper, which is a touch faded to the spine.

The author's debut, and one of the great twentieth century travel books. Blending vivid accounts of nomadic peoples and landscapes with memoir, biography, history and reflections on human nature, 'In Patagonia' served to inject a new vitality into the genre of travel writing. Chatwin's inimitable, experimental writing style - described by John Updike as 'a clipped, lapidary prose that compresses worlds into pages' - and his dashing adventurer image helped to make him one of the most influential and highly regarded travel writers amongst both his peers and the reading public. Winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the E. M. Forster Award.