Sick Heart River

FIRST EDITION, half title, text block clean, publishers green cloth, monograph blind stamp to top board, title in gilt to spine, scarce in original dust jacket, price clipped,slightly rubbed along fold line, preserved with a transparent removable covering, 8vo, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1941

A good copy of Buchans last work, published posthumously. The spy novel set in Canada was written during the time Buchan held the position of Governor of Canada. The novel follows Sir Edward Leithen as he travels deep into the Canadian Arctic to investigate a man’s mysterious disappearance. The fictional Sick Heart River is in the real region of the Nahanni River in Canada’s Northwest Territories. It is in some of the most rugged terrain in Canada. The area was only just being mapped when Buchan, as Governor-General Lord Tweedsmuir, passed nearby during his voyage down the Mackenzie River in the summer of 1937. Having heard much about the mysterious South Nahanni, Buchan was fascinated by it and wanted to go there, but did not make it before he died in February, 1940. [Galbraith, 2001] . Buchan’s final and most profound novel has the protagonist questioning the meaning of life as he confronts death and redemption.

Blanchard A134; Galbraith, 2001,