Description

We recently purchased a large collection of Easton Press books to be listed in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for the chance to pick up some collectible titles. This text was featured in the Easton Press series Great Books of the 20th Century . Published in 2000, bound in handsome Grey leather, and strikingly illustrated by Daniel Mark Duffy, this edition would be a worthy addendum to your collectible books library. Specifics of this series from the Easton Press website: Fully and tightly bound in genuine leather 22kt gold accents deeply inlaid on the "hubbed" spine.* Heavy duty binding boards... . Superbly printed on acid-neutral paper... . Sewn pages – not just glued like ordinary books. ...moiré endpages and a satin-ribbon page marker. Gilded page ends. ******************************************************************************************************************* ". . . Set in the 1930s at the height of the purge and show trials of a Stalinist Moscow, Darkness at Noon is a haunting portrait of an aging revolutionary, Nicholas Rubashov, who is imprisoned, tortured, and forced through a series of hearings by the Party to which he has dedicated his life. As the pressure to confess preposterous crimes increases, he re-lives a career that embodies the terrible ironies and betrayals of a merciless totalitarian movement masking itself as an instrument of deliverance. Koestler’s portrayal of Stalin-era totalitarianism and fascism is as chilling and resonant today as it was in the 1940s and during the Cold War. Rubashov’s plight explores the meaning and value of moral choices, the attractions and dangers of idealism, and the corrosiveness of political corruption. Like The Trial, 1984, and Animal Farm, this is a book you should read as a citizen of the world, wherever you are and wherever you come from." ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Arthur Koestler CBE (5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler joined the Communist Party of Germany, but he resigned in 1938 after becoming disillusioned with Stalinism. Having moved to Britain in 1940, he published his novel Darkness at Noon , an anti-totalitarian work that gained him international fame. Over the next 43 years, Koestler espoused many political causes and wrote novels, memoirs, biographies, and numerous essays. In 1949, Koestler began secretly working with a British Cold War anti-communist propaganda department known as the Information Research Department (IRD), which would republish and distribute many of his works, and also fund his activities. In 1968, he was awarded the Sonning Prize "for [his] outstanding contribution to European culture". In 1972, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In 1976, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and in 1979 with terminal leukaemia. On 1 March 1983, Koestler and his wife Cynthia committed suicide together at their London home by swallowing lethal quantities of barbiturate-based Tuinal capsules. The above text was taken from, respectively, Scribner publishing (via Google Books) and Wikipedia. [Koestler, Arthur., Scammell, Michael. Darkness at Noon: A Novel. United States: Scribner, 2019. ]