First Canadian edition first printing of a very good plus hardcover with one small colour fade, in a very good dustjacket with 2 small closed tears and a crease along the top on the front cover and minor wear at the extremities. A completely charming novel of three generations of Australians, the Vanes and the Brayfords, who struggle to find their place in Australian 'society' around the turn of the century (pre WWI), then again in pre- and post war England (WWII). Of her two suitors, Toorak socialite Tony Duff (Sam Neill) and British aristocrat Captain Hugo Brayford (Barry Quin), she chooses to marry the dashing, amoral Hugo who carries her off to England and the ancestral home ‘Crittenden’. It is understood that Lucinda will be bringing more wealth to the union, but this is reasonable, considering the rise in social fortunes to be enjoyed by the Vanes. In fact, all of Melbourne social life, it seems, was built to re-create in the new world, however disreputable family origins may have been, an aristocracy of form (if not of blood) based on the English model.

This novel was adapted for a television mini-series in 1980, produced by Oscar Whitbread and directed by John Gauci, from a screenplay by Cliff Green, featuring Wendy Hughes as Lucinda, and Sam Neill as Tony Duff. The story of a beautiful woman set mainly in Melbourne, Victoria and England from the early 1900s to the Second World War. These would-be aristocrats were parvenues, nouveaux riches brought to their station by ambition rather than by history, breeding, and education.Director John Gauci uses every trick in the book to cover the relative lack of budget, cutting corners by dropping shots and employing corner sets and very basic multi-camera set-ups ( clip one).

His experiences temporarily jolt him out of his rather indulgent life of art and self-pity, forcing him to confront the rest of humanity. Jacket Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps.The poor reviews seem to compare it to either a radio or tv mini-series, but I believe the writing holds up very well and stands on its own. Boyd was an expatriate novelist, memoirist, and poet who spent most of his life after World War One in Europe, primarily Britain.