WHITE CHAPPELL SCARLET TRACINGS (SIGNED)

Hardback. 1st Trade Edn. SIGNED. A novel bringing together an impressively predatory and seedy group of antiquarian book-dealers and an investigation of the 19th-century Jack the Ripper murders. The London East End and bare East Anglian locations generate a bizarre and realistic atmosphere for the rush of events - dark Dickensian alleys and occult churches, hospitals of victims and crazed doctors, panicking aristocrats in their backstreet sexual encounters, and the isolation of grim marshlands and ruined boats. The double detective plot fuses a hunt for rare books with an obsessive plunge into the Ripper labyrinths opened up by the Sickert family and others. Past and present ferment in an atmosphere of hallucinatory and actual fears in an extending underground. Illus. by John Bellamy. This first edition book with Frontis. by Rigby Graham, was designed by Martino Mardersteig, and was Goldmark's first publication. It was also Iain's first foray into the world of novel writing, and was greeted with great acclaim by the critics. Iain was also a contributor to the Grey House Books publication 'Who Was Jack the Ripper? A Collection of Present-Day Theories and Observations'. From the library of Paul Daniel, ex-editor of the 'Ripperologist' magazine (December 1996 No. 8 - February 2000 No. 27) with his name rubber stamp, and date in green felt-tip to bep. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY IAIN SINCLAIR TO PAUL. V.V. lightly browned edges o/w Nr. F. in F. protected dw.