Fergusson When Money Dies

Fergusson, Harvey: Grant of Kingdom - A Novel, NY William Morrow & Company, Inc. 1950 ; fester Einband / hard cover; Schutzumschlag / dust cover; sig.; 1. Ed.
Fine in Very Good Dust Jacket

First printing of Morrow hardcover edition. viii, 312pp. Red cloth, gilt spine lettering, tan endpapers. Dust jacket price 3.00. Signed by Fergusson to title page. Book appears in fine, tight, unread condition; dust jacket has minor wear to extremeties but still very bright. Harvey Fergusson wrote some of the 20th-century's greatest novels of the American Southwest. " 'Grant of Kingdom', set against the grandeur of the northern New Mexico landscape, is perhaps Fergusson's best novel; it is, in addition, one of the great novels of western American literature. The overriding themes of Harvey Fergusson's best fiction are the emasculating effects of time and the inevitability of change. In Fergusson's world view the forces of time and change are equally potent in shaping the lives of individuals, of societies, and of regions. The finest of his fiction is set in the American West, and it is historical fiction in the best sense of the term. Through the experience of individual characters, Fergusson encapsulates in microcosm the history of human life in the West - or, more specifically, the Southwest. Taken as an aggregate, the author's works constitute a historical diorama of breathtaking and provocative scope. 'Grant of Kingdom', set against the grandeur of the northern New Mexico landscape, is perhaps Fergusson's best novel; it is, in addition, one of the great novels of western American literature. The story is based on the history of the Maxwell Land Grant, an enormous tract of nearly two million acres centering on the town of Cimarron, New Mexico. Ceded to Carlos Beaubien by the king of Spain, the land was held during the middle decades of the nineteenth century by Beaubien's son-in-law, Lucien Maxwell. Grant of Kingdom is Fergusson's fullest, most illuminating treatment of southwestern history. History, indeed, is the book's subject - not just historical facts, but the meanings inherent in the facts. In his foreword to the novel the author makes clear that he intends not only to develop a specific fragment of regional history but also to project a much wider vision of man's collective experience. Like the South's William Faulkner, Fergusson in 'Grant of Kingdom' effectively uses the history of a plot of land, "a postage stamp of soil," in Faulkner's phrase, as a microcosm of a region's past; as Faulkner is said to have fashioned a "legend of the South" from the history of Yoknapatawpha County, so from the story of the Maxwell Land Grant Fergusson creates his legend of the American West. Once again, in 'Grant of Kingdom' as elsewhere in his fiction, Fergusson is concerned to show the workings of change on individuals and societies. Jean Ballard, an extension of Wolf Song's Sam Lash, is for a long while an energetic swimmer in the current of change. An ex-mountain man, he marries into the Coronel family and is transformed into el patron, "the absolute ruler of a minor kingdom, strictly feudal in its social structure." He establishes order by means of personal loyalty, rather than by smoothly functioning organization. Almost by force of personality alone, he brings peace, prosperity, and civilization to his grant, and his life's labors result in progress for an entire region. By the time he dies, however, Ballard is a human relic. He possesses no business sense, distrusting banks and risky investments. Inevitably he runs afoul of the go-for-broke economic system that settled over the West in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. For Ballard late in life, "work and physical danger are simple things to deal with. What makes life hard is the bewilderment of change and complication, the rush of people and money, the impact of unexpected things. . . ." With the intrusion of railroads and money into what had been, even in Ballard's heyday, an unspoiled wilderness, an irrevocable change is worked: these instruments of modern society "destroyed one kind of man and created another." The man they create is the wheeler-dealer speculator and financier, Major Blore. Blore, for better or worse, is a "modern man" in every sense of the term. He understands the importance of proper organization, and he knows how to use money and technology. His lust for money and power springs from his childhood status as a poor white in the classconscious South, and he discovers in the newly opened West a formative society in which he may freely indulge his savage ambitions. Naturally Blore delights in toppling so exalted an aristocrat as Jean Ballard. He wrests control of the grant from the aged Ballard, divides it into small ranches and homesteads, and sells out at an enormous profit. However, Blore's dream of a populous city on the grant eventually withers and dies when the railroad passes the area by. Of novels set in the nineteenth-century West, 'Grant of Kingdom' is certainly one of the most suggestive and illuminating. It is chronologically inclusive, yet compact. It convincingly displays in microcosm the stages of social development, the cultural and technological forces, the procession of character types that shaped the history of the West. In reviewing the book when it first appeared, J. Frank Dobie said that 'Grant of Kingdom', though perhaps defective in minor ways, would endure as a work of art because it somehow evokes the unique tempos of both "earth and metal." Dobie's focus on narrative rhythm is very much to the point in evaluating the novel's effectiveness. The story,and the style in which it is told, advances not only with the leisurely pace of a great pastoral kingdom, but also with the clangorous urgency of invading money and machinery. With grace and wisdom, 'Grant of Kingdom' suggests both the tragic disruption and the hopeful promise of time and change, and that, after all, is the dramatic rhythm of all human history, not just western history." - William T. Pilkington. Signed by Author First Edition Very Good Hard Cover 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall; First Edition

[SW: Collectible Southwest Literature Western Fiction]

Details

Adam Fergusson: When Money Dies, Old. St Publishing 2010 ; weicher Einband / soft cover ISBN: 9781906964443
9781906964443 New

The Nightmare of the Weimar Hyper-Inflation Paperback

Details

Adam Fergusson: When Money Dies, Old Street Publishing,
A history of the hyper-inflation of Weimar Germany, which asks some worryingly relevant questions, such as how does a society and its citizens react to the destruction of its money, and how can a country's finances spin so totally out of control that no-one can halt the headlong plunge into the abyss 'The narrative has its own compelling pace - the pace of runaway inflation' Guardian

NEW 216X22X137

Details