SEBASTIAN BARRY (b.1955)
Days Without End. London: Faber & Faber, 2016.
First edition, signed twice on title and annotated with 433 words on 43 pages and with 20 sketches (eight in colour) of characters, scenes and objects in the novel. Days Without End is part of Barry's series of novels dealing with two Irish families, the Dunnes and the McNultys: here, Thomas McNulty crosses from County Sligo to America in the wake of the Famine, and this 'fever dream of a novel' (Guardian, 28 October 2016) follows him and his lover and brother in arms John Cole through their experiences first as cross-dressing entertainers and then as soldiers fighting in the Indian Wars and Civil War, as they establish a makeshift family with a young Sioux girl, Winona. The novel was awarded the Costa Book Award in 2016 and the Walter Scott Prize in 2017, and was listed by Time as one of its top ten novels of 2017. Barry's annotations range from comments on specific sentences including the first (which 'took about 7 months to find. Find? Maybe it floated in...') and the 'much commented on sentence' illuminating the relationship between Thomas and John ('And then we quietly fucked and then we slept'), reflections on historical context and his sources, and insights into formal aspects, including the punctuation of dialogue, the use of chapters, and his 'Rules for this book: / No poetry. / No set pieces. / No lingering'. The appealing sketches depict characters from the novel including the two protagonists and Winona, as well as objects and scenes in the text.

Octavo. Original green boards, gilt lettering to spine, dust jacket.

Buyer’s premium is payable, with a significant portion donated by Christie’s to English PEN, but note that no VAT is payable on hammer price or buyer’s premium.
-