An Insular Possession

First edition. Royal 8vo. Pp. [iv], 593, [1, blank]. Grey-blue cloth boards, lettered and ruled in gilt to spine; map endpapers. Wraparound dust jacket artwork, "Veranda of Nathan Kinsman's residence in Macau," ca. 1843, by Lam Qua.

Signed by Author to title page. Tanned page edges as usual, else fine in like, price-clipped, dust jacket.

Shortlisted for the 1986 Booker Prize. Included in The Telegraph's 2014 list of the 10 all-time greatest Asian novels. The first Anglo-Chinese Opium War of the late 1830s, as seen through the eyes of two young Americans on the China Coast. Author's third and professed favourite amongst his own novels, having denounced English critics who found it "overcerebral," in a 1987 New York Times Book Review profile.

Omitted from the 1983 Granta Best Young Writers list, Mo rapidly out-performed most of his rivals with a 75% Booker prize short-list hit-rate from his first four novels. Since rejecting a £125,000 advance from Random House for his novel Brownout on Breadfruit Boulevard (1995), the author has self-published under his label "Paddleless Press".

"A marvellous, monumental achievement, highly intelligent, witty and having the gravitas of true historical insight... A first-class historical novel of tremendous sweep." –Spectator