Bibliographic Description
84.09.W005: Matthiessen – Far Tortuga
FAR | TORTUGA | Peter Matthiessen | Vintage Contemporaries | VINTAGE BOOKS • A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE • NEW YORK
First Vintage Books Edition, September 1984
208 leaves, pp. [6] 1-2 3-42 43 44-50 51-53 54-88 89 90-95 96 97-102 103 104-116 117 118-127 128-129 130-134 135 136-137 138 139-163 164 165 166 167-180 181-182 183-201 202 203-216 217 218-252 253 254-258 259 260 261 262-268 269 270-281 282 283-324 325-326 327 328 329-360 361 362-365 366-372 373 374 375-378 379 380-387 388 389-390 391 392-395 396 397-403 404-405 406-408 [2]
Contents: π1a blurbs and author photo, π1b “ALSO AVAILABLE IN VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES”, π2a title-page, π2b imprint and dedication “FOR MARIA”, π3a acknowledgments, π3b epigraph, 1 fly-title, 2 blank, 3-408 Far Tortuga, χ1a blank, χ1b about the author.
Cover design by Lorraine Louie; cover illustration by Marc Tauss; interior author photo by Hans Teensma.
Copyright: ©1975. ISBN: 394-72478-X. Price: $6.95. Far Tortuga was first published by Random House, 1975.
Copies: JDP 1.1 (four copies) (presumed)
Blurbs
- (front cover) An adventure story…worth comparing to the best of Conrad or Stevenson. – The New York Review of Books
- Beautiful and original…a resonant and symbolical story of nine doomed men who dream of an earthly paradise as the world winds down around them. – Newsweek
- An important book, its pleasures are many and good for the soul….Far Tortuga is a singular experience, a series of moments captured whole and rendered with a clarity that quickens the blood. Matthiessen’s evocation of the Caribbean is uncanny. From its opening moment, with daybreak over the Windward Passage, the reader senses that the narrative itself is the recapitulation of a cosmic process, as though the author has sought to link his storytelling with the eye of creation. Peter Matthiessen is a unique and masterful visionary artist. – Robert Stone, front page, The New York Times Book Review
- The stuff of which great books are made….Far Tortuga is about the sea and sailors and change; but mostly it is a novel of the human spirit. – James Dickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer
- The most beautiful and compelling American novel in decades. – The Chicago Sun-Times