A Fringe of Leaves by Patrick White

A Fringe of Leaves

by Patrick White

Jonathan Cape, 1976 [First Edition], ISBN 0224012908, blue colour dipped top fore-edge, hardcover, dust-jacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing to edges and corners, previous owners inscription marked out on front end-paper, price-clipped dust-jacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with minor rubbing to edges, sticker residue and rubbing to top front cover (see photographs)

"Returning home after a visit to a reprobate brother in Van Diemen's Land in the eighteen Thirties, Mr Austin Roxburgh, an English gentleman, and his wife, Ellen, are caught in a catastrophic storm off the coast of what is today Queensland.  The none-too-seaworthy brig, Bristol Maid, founders on a reef, and crew and passengers take to the boats.  After being driven up and down the coast for weeks, in the course of which Mrs Roxburgh is delivered of a stillborn child in the waterlogged long-boat, the survivors succeed in landing.  Blacks whom the crew fire on retaliate by spearing to death the captain of the vessel and Austin Roxburgh."