JIM CRACE (b.1946)
Harvest. London: Picador, 2013.
‘Writing is a solitary act which needs a community of support’: first edition, signed on the title by the author and annotated with 1519 words across 9 pages, including a transcription of Crace’s twenty-minute acceptance speech for the 2015 Dublin Impac Award. Spanning 7 pages, this is the only available record of the speech, which contains reflections on the genesis of Harvest and on the challenges of the creative process. Crace’s compelling novel is set in a remote unnamed English village, around the time of the Enclosure Act of the late 17th century. It explores the impact of the enclosure of common land on rural life, told from the perspective of the protagonist, a villager named Walter Thirsk.

In his annotations, Crace identifies storytelling as ‘an ancient craft which is wise and mischievous and generous’ and reveals insights into the trials of writing. Following an attempt at a ‘failed’ and ultimately unpublished book, he states ‘the novel Harvest was gifted to me out of nowhere’. The author notes that Harvest was always intended to be his final novel (‘I wrote it as a fond valediction’) – but this was not the case. Following the success of Harvest, Crace has written two further novels –The Melody (2018) and Eden (2022). As he notes in his speech, ‘Instead of retiring from words as I had promised, I now find myself eating them!’. Loosely inserted are 4 A4 pages containing words of celebration for Crace at the Dublin Impac Awards, which the author has signed.

Octavo. Original red cloth, gold lettering to the spine, pictorial dust jacket.

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