King Rat
London: Michael Joseph, (1963).
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Hardcover. First English edition. Fine in very near fine dustwrapper with a couple of small stains on the rear panel. Inscribed by Clavell on the title page, presumably at a later date, noting: "1st edition yet!" Author's first book, a novel about a Japanese POW camp in WWII, and the basis for the excellent and overlooked Bryan Forbes film featuring George Segal, Tom Courtenay, and James Fox. A handsome copy.
Item #425640
James Clavell
birth name: James Clavell
born: 10/10/1924
died: 9/6/1994
Biography
Author of popular action novels that portray Asian cultures. Initially a writer of screenplays, Clavell based his first novel, King Rat (1962), on his experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II. Struggles for power and wealth and secondarily, sex and love occupy his fiction, as East and West and male and female clash. Other Clavell novels include Tai-Pan (1966) and Noble House (1981), set in historic and modern Hong Kong; Shogun (1975), set in 17th-century Japan; Whirlwind (1986), set in Iran during its 1979 revolution; and Gia-Jin (1993), set in 19th-century Japan. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literaturemore