David Spilman Fine Books

The Iceland Fisherman (Pêcheur D' Islande); [Translated from French, W. P. Baines] [Frontispiece by John Overton]

Loti, Pierre

London: T. Werner Laurie LTD., [1924]. Near Fine in Very Good Plus dust-jacket First Edition, Later Printing. [8.125x5.75in] 256 pp.; Burnt orange cloth covers with black ink illustrations and gilt lettering on front and spine, black ink publisher logo on rear, black border on front and gilt rules on spine; Light gray-green linen dust jacket with black lettering on front and spine, color illustration on front inside of black borders, advertisement on rear; Minimal shelf wear to covers, edges and corners, light age-toning and foxing spots throughout and along edges of text block, prior owner ink writing on front free end paper; Minimal shelf wear to dust jacket with short closed tears at top joints, soiling spots on front and rear cover, slight fading of spine. Item #14385

Pierre Loti is the pseudonym of the French nautical novelist Julien Viaud (1850-1923). Viaud was a Naval Officer and French novelist. For two years he cruised the coast of Brittany providing the background for this novel of the men who fished the northern waters. The novel is about the Breton fishermen of the North Atlantic Iceland cod fishing grounds. Loti writes about the "romantic" Maritime life of sailing ships in stormy seas.

In 1886 Loti published a novel of life among the Breton fisher folk, called Pêcheur d'Islande (Iceland Fisherman), which Edmund Gosse characterized as "the most popular and finest of all his writings." It shows Loti adapting some of the Impressionist techniques of contemporary painters, especially Monet, to prose, and is a classic of French literature. The first English edition was published in 1888.

Contemporary critic Edmund Gosse gave the following assessment of his work... "At his best Pierre Loti was unquestionably the finest descriptive writer of the day. In the delicate exactitude with which he reproduced the impression given to his own alert nerves by unfamiliar forms, colors, sounds and perfumes, he was without a rival. Pierre Loti remains, in the mechanism of style and cadence, one of the most original and most perfect French writers of the second half of the 19th century."

Price: $60.00