Mysteries.

HAMSUN, Knut.

Item Number: 123981

London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927.

First American edition of Hamsun’s second novel. Octavo, original cloth. Translated from the Norwegian of Knut Hamsun by Arthur G. Chater. Near fine in the rare original dust jacket which is in near fine condition.

Hamsun's second novel, Mysteries, follows the story of a small Norwegian coastal town whose bourgeois inhabitants are shocked by a strange and eccentric stranger. The novel was originally published in Norway in 1892. It was translated into English by Gerry Bothmer and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1971, with an afterword by Isaac Bashevis Singer, who said, "The whole school of fiction in the 20th century stems from Hamsun." The 1978 film Mysteries was based on the novel, set on the Isle of Man with a screenplay written by Hamsun and the director, Paul de Lussanet.