Out in the Midday Sun: My Kenya.

HUXLEY, Elspeth.

Item Number: 101423

London: Chatto & Windus, 1985.

First edition, early printing of Huxley’s memoirs of her adult life. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, “Elspeth Huxley, For Joe Ferrier with gratitude for a continuing interest 1986.” The recipient, Joe Ferrier was a fan and pen pal of Huxley’s. They often exchanged letters, books, and article clippings between England and the United States. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

Nellie and Major Josceline Grant arrived in Thika, in what was then British East Africa in 1912 where they became colonial settlers and established a coffee plantation. Their daughter, Elspeth had quite an unconventional childhood which she later wrote about in her best known work The Flame Trees of Thika (1959) which examined how unprepared for rustic life the early British settlers really were. Out in the Midday Sun: My Kenya continues the story of Huxley's adult life beginning in 1933 when she returned to Kenya after an interval of eight years.