Cry, The Beloved Country (first edition, 1948) & Audio Cassette "Alan Paton Reads Excerpts From His Book Cry, The Beloved Country"

True first edition of the author's FIRST and most famous work. Published by Jonathan Cape in 1948.

Publisher's cream cloth binding. Internally the book is clean with only a contemporary owner's name on the front end paper. Externally there is a light discolouration running along the rear hinge of the spine. There is no discolouration internally. Binding solid. Dust jacket is in fair to good condition with some age associated edge wear. The original price on the front flap is intact. 

Included in this lot is an audio cassette of the author reading the beginning (running time 24:48) and the conclusion (running time 24:04) of his work.

In "Cry, The Beloved Country" a black reverend from rural Ndotsheni, an ancestral home of South Africa's Zulus, searches for his wayward son in hostile, unfamiliar Johannesburg. He finds his son - sentenced to death by hanging for murdering a white man during an attempted robbery in his own house. By a twist of fate, the murdered man was Arthus Jarvis - a dedicated fighter for blacks' equality. This story of the reverend's hopes for a restoration of tribal customs and family unity in South Africa and peace for all men, regardless of race, is as timely today as when it was written in 1948."