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Title:Disturbing Element
Price:AUD$14.90 (about USD$9.80)
Item ID:SB00-0239654
Quantity:1
Publisher:F. W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1963
Edition:First
Binding:Hardcover
Condition:Very Good
Dust Jacket:Good
F. W. Cheshire, 1963, Hardcover, Book Condition: Very Good, Dust Jacket Condition: Good, First

pp. [viii], 272 (last blank); the front and rear panels of the dustjacket have been attacked by silverfish, and there is light foxing of the top edge of the textbook. "This exciting, autobiographical book has been described by the author himself as "a novelist's handling of facts". But it would be truer to say that the facts have handled the author, because in coming at last to write his own extraordinarily colourful life, Xavier Herbert is at his very best as a storyteller. Indeed it might well be that his former writing, although it has made him famous, was but a preliminary to the greater task of what he calls "seeking to discover the reality of my own existence". He seeks that reality here with a ruthless objectivity and reckless courage, while yet he tells a rollicking story of his odd beginnings. He himself is the Disturbing Element, in a family he claims never wanted him. Born on the north-west coast of Western Australia, he is the son of a prospector turned horse breaker turned railway engine driver, grandson of a phoney nobleman turned camel driver. From such origins he becomes, of all things, a pharmaceutical chemist. One of his chapters is entitled "The Chemist Is a Girl's Best Friend" and with utter frankness as he tells of multifarious adventures in that role. Then he decides to become a doctor, and proceeds to study and practice medicine at one and the same time in a riot of unconventionality." -- front fold over blurb Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Please refer to accompanying picture (s). Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilo. Category: Biography & Autobiography; Australia; Genealogy & Local History. Inventory No: 0239654.
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