The Image And The Search By Walter Baxter Controversial 1954

Descripción

The Image and the Search by Walter Baxter Controversial Novel 1954 First U.S. Edition Vintage Book Ficton
HARD COVER
FIRST EDITION

Walter Baxter's "The Image and the Search", a serious novel, was at the center of an English obscenity trial. Members of the press and authors and publishers everywhere — anyone who was concerned with issues of censorship — watched closely. This is the First American Edition Published in 1954 by Putnam. William Baxter's first novel, "Look Down in Mercy" was highly regarded and is considered one of the finest English novels dealing with World War II. There was a general air of high expectancy awaiting his second novel. When "The Image and the Search" was finally published in 1953 by Heinemann, both the author and the publisher were brought before the English courts on the criminal charges of obscene libel. It was not the first time a book had come before the English courts on charges of obscenity, but it is worth noting that the particular judge involved was the same judge who, years before took part in the prosecution of D. H. Lawrence for "Lady Chatterly's Lover". Various famous authors spoke out for Baxter's book - some, amazingly turned their backs on a fellow author. The case came to trial three times and three times the jury could not agree and so the publisher and Baxter were found not guilty. But the wind had been taken out of Baxter's creative sails. The trials finished him as a writer, his zeal for writing having been broken on the rack of public censure. "The Image and the Search" was his last book, and thus a promising career was cut short by the implacable troops of Mrs. Grundy. Mr. Baxter never wrote another novel. It wasn't Baxter's book that ended his writing career, but the forces of repression, censorship and intolerance.

From the jacket blurb:

— "The Image and the Search" is the story of a woman's quest for the happiness which vanished from her life in the conflagration of the Second World War; a quest which slowly but inevitably resolved itself into a search for the meaning of existence.

— To Sarah Valmont, life was a private ecstasy, its beauty and perfection shared only with her husband. With Robert alone could she find that rare contentment which shuts out the rest of the world. Even when war broke out, Sarah's life continued to be only Robert. Then one day he was reported missing in action, bringing complete and utter destruction to her secret world

— In a desperate effort to recover her lost idyll, Sarah turns to one man, then another, until she has been driven to the very edge of promiscuity, from which she is turned back only by the war's end. But she is still a woman driven by a desire she is too distraught to recognize. A frantic search for some trace of Robert, now officially reported dead, ends n failure. Then comes her flight to India, source of the raw material for the shellac business she has inherited. There, in the steaming lac jungles of the deep interior, a new life opens for her, largely through the influence of the missioner, Father Depuyt. But there she also finds Johan, son of the foreman of her factory, who bears a striking resemblance to her beloved Robert. Relentlessly she is drawn to him until all the old longings begin once again to rise.

— The inevitable climax comes in a weird cave high on top of a sacred mountain. Here, in a truly sensational scene, Sarah experiences a mystical transfiguration of spirit which causes her to see for the first time the whole purpose and meaning of her own and all human life. —