FRAZIER, Charles Cold Mountain

Large 8vo., sandy-coloured boards lettered in metallic blue to spine; map endpapers showing the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains; together in the matching unclipped dustwrapper (£14.99 to front flap); with a photograph by Eric Rank; pp. [viii], 357, [iii]; a little bumped at spine tips, but otherwise a fine copy in the near-fine dustwrapper which is just a little sunned to the backstrip. 

First UK edition, with full number line 1-10. This copy signed by the author in blue ink to the title page, and additionally signed beneath by Anthony Minghella, director of the film adaptation. 

Frazier was born and raised in North Carolina, and later taught English at the University of Colorado Boulder and at North Carolina State. It was during this time that he began to write Cold Mountain, a novel set during the American Civil War which follows W. P. Inman, a wounded deserter, in his attempts to walk for months across the mountains and countryside to reunite with the woman he loves. It was at the behest of his wife (who encouraged him to quit teaching in order to focus on writing) and after the backing from his friend and author Kaye Gibbons (who presented his unfinished novel to her literary agency), that the novel was eventually published. Evoking striking descriptions of the North Carolina landscape which the author called home, the work drew strongly both on local history, and stories passed down from Frazier’s father and great-great-uncle, the latter whom in fact inspired the protagonist, having served in the confederate army and who did indeed desert after being wounded twice in action. 

The book was an instant success, selling over three million copies worldwide. In 2003, it was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film with a star-studded cast including Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger. 

 The first UK edition is considerably scarcer than the US. 

SKU: 1800232