Description

• Novel jointly written by this Australian husband & wife collaboration. It won the prestigious Sydney Morning Herald literary competition* in 1948, bringing a significant £2,000 prize & immediate literary attention, launching the public image of the couple. It was Johnston’s tenth published book but Clift’s first.
• Johnston was famously quoted as saying: “If there is any quality in this book it is the work of my wife. She is responsible for characterisation and emotional content. I was the journalist who provided the substance, she was the artist who provided the burnish.” It was this “burnish” that was lavishly praised by judges of the SMH competition [& the book’s publisher in the jacket blurb], yet Clift’s contribution received short popular shrift with many asserting the work to be largely that of the more established Johnston.
• Both philosophical & romantic, the novel follows the odyssey of Chinese orphan Salom through Tibet [drawing on Johnston’s real-life experiences there].
• Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1949 [1st Ed]. Octavo; [6], 266 pages; yellow cloth with brown lettering to spine & small illustration to front, covers faintly bowed, spine lightly canted, lightly foxed to page edges/endpapers; an excellent copy in the good unclipped illustrated dustjacket [chipping with some loss to extremities, 3 & 5cm closed tears to front with associated creasing] with bold “£2,000 PRIZE NOVEL” tag.

*Prize previously won in its inaugural year by Ruth Park for Harp in the South