A deeply personal meditation on death and the meaning of life First published in 1925, Skin For Skin is a deeply personal account of Llewelyn Powys' encounter with tuberculosis, which he contracted in 1909 at the age of twenty-five. In those days, prior to the discovery of antibiotics, TB - or consumption as it was then called - was a leading cause of death; for Powys, the bubbling sensation in his lungs and the blood in his mouth amounted to a sentence of death. In the pages of this uncompromising memoir we accompany ...
Read More
A deeply personal meditation on death and the meaning of life First published in 1925, Skin For Skin is a deeply personal account of Llewelyn Powys' encounter with tuberculosis, which he contracted in 1909 at the age of twenty-five. In those days, prior to the discovery of antibiotics, TB - or consumption as it was then called - was a leading cause of death; for Powys, the bubbling sensation in his lungs and the blood in his mouth amounted to a sentence of death. In the pages of this uncompromising memoir we accompany him to a Swiss sanitarium to recover his health, then back to the south of England for a period of convalescence, hoping that the dreadful symptoms do not return. Hoping - but not praying. For Powys, an atheist, there is no comfort in a belief in God and an immortal soul, and so he finds himself staring into the abyss. The experience, as so much else in the book, is recounted in powerfully vivid, lyrical prose: "I would wake in the small hours of the morning swaddled in fear. With scared eyes I would peer into the darkness of my room, and into the unknown days before me, and come to realize, during those tense, suspended moments, how completely unattended, how intolerably alone we are, each one of us, like cattle herded into a merciless stockyard, to be driven into the shambles, separately, when our turn comes." And yet, despite the soulless darkness, there is reason for existence. As we see in Skin For Skin , Powys finds it in enjoying life to the fullest, in feasting upon it while he has it, in squeezing the last drop of joy from each day. As the Brooklyn Daily Eagle concluded in its review of the book in 1925, "Rugged, brutal and yet, in spots, tender, Skin For Skin makes life worth living after all."
Read Less
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $19.58, good condition, Sold by Fireside Bookshop rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Stroud, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1975 by Village Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good in No d/j as Published jacket. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; Type: Book N.B. Previous owners inscription to ffep. Corners and edges a little rubbed.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $20.00, good condition, Sold by Orrin Schwab - BOOKS rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Providence, UT, UNITED STATES, published 1926 by Jonathan Cape.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good+ Shelf wear and rubbing to the spine edges and corners. The corners are lightly bumped. 1926 printing. Limited to 900 copies, of which this is #280.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $27.00, good condition, Sold by Besleys Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Diss, UNITED KINGDOM, published by London, Cape, 1926..
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $29.00, very good condition, Sold by Xerxes Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Glen Head, NY, UNITED STATES.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
NY 1925 first edition thus. Harcourt Brace. Hardcover octavo. Black cloth with yellow lettering and picture on front panel. 147p. Cover tips bent inward. VG. no owner marks; some light cover wear.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $30.00, very good condition, Sold by Aladdin Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Fullerton, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1926 by Jonathan Cape.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good+ Bookplate on pastedown with cooresponding offsetting to front free endpaper, else vg+, tight, clean. #833/900 copies. No jacket. Housed in a custom made folding case with leather spine and gilt titles imprinted theron.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $30.00, very good condition, Sold by Between the Covers-Rare Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gloucester City, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1925 by Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good. First American edition. Black cloth stamped in yellow. Pages lightly age-toned, spine faded, corners lightly rubbed, very good lacking the scarce dustwrapper. Autobiography written during the time Powys had tuberculosis.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $33.81, like new condition, Sold by Bibliodisia Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chicago, IL, UNITED STATES, published 1921 by Harcourt Brace.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $36.15, very good condition, Sold by Besleys Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Diss, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1926 by Jonathan Cape.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good in Fair jacket. Hardback with dust-wrapper. 23 x 15.5cm. 151pp, [1]. One of an edition of 900 copies, this copy not numbered by marked 'Presentation'. Dust-wrapper frayed and marked. Previous owner's bookplate on the front pastedown. A little spotting to end-papers but pretty clean and with the slightest wear only to the book itself.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $50.00, like new condition, Sold by Argosy Book Store rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from New York, NY, UNITED STATES, published 1926 by Jonathan Cape.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine in very good(-) jacket. Tall 8vo, cloth-backed boards. London: Cape, 1926. Limited First Edition. One of 900 numbered copies. Fine, except for foxed end-papers, in a spine darkened dust wrapper.
Add this copy of Skin for Skin to cart. $50.00, very good condition, Sold by Columbia Books rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MO, UNITED STATES, published 1926.
