The Best of Lawrence Green

Howard Timmins, Cape Town, 1973 (First Edition).

Hardcover, 274 pages. 

Good, clean condition.  The cover has edgewear.

When Lawrence G. Green died in May 1972 at the age of 72, hundreds of thousands of the admirers of the works of South Africas most successful author of the last 25 years mourned his passing. To them all it seemed sad and bewildering that in the times ahead the autumn of each year would not herald the appearance of yet another memorable book from his prolific yet penetrative pen. Scott Haigh, his friend and colleague for 45 years, believed that in each of these books that sold in their thousands there was one gem that glittered even more brightly than the nevertheless brilliant rest. This new volume The Best of Lawrence Green is the outcome of this belief and will be an abiding and rare memorial to his genius. This outstanding anthology contains 18 separate chapters from 18 of Lawrence Greens many books. Each chapter can be read and relished as a complete story by a master surveyor of the South African scene, who unravelled so many mysteries and has adorned in his inimitable way the history of the past and the present. Quaint characters, rare meals, compelling cameos of yesterday and yesteryear and all the subjects that fascinated Lawrence Green appear in this nostalgic, valedictory volume. To a great majority of readers this will appear as an entirely new Lawrence G. Green work. Many chapters have been selected from books long out of print. So the magic of Lawrence Green will endure. This anthology, however, is of much deeper literary significance than a hasty assembly of the cream of Lawrence Greens remarkable books. In moving prefaces to all the chapters, Scott Haigh explains the reasons for his choice. In doing so he reveals intimate glimpses of the shy, retiring man who for so long enthralled South Africas reading public with his magnificent books.