NILES, Blair. Condemned to Devil's Island: The Biography of an Unknown Convict. Illustrated in black and white by Beth Krebs Morris. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1928. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s black cloth lettered in red to the spine and upper board, in the striking dust jacket. Printed dedication to the author’s husband with a two-page explanation by the author to front. A near fine copy, the cloth a touch mottled with the spine tips a trifle bumped, but the boards firm, the binding tight and square, and the topstain vivid. Attractive illustrated endpapers. Small previous owner inscription in ink to title page corner, else fine. The dust jacket unclipped ($3.00) with all four corners neatly cut. A few small nicks and tiny chips to the corners and spine tips, some small closed tears and faint creases, but a bright and pleasing copy overall.
A fictional biography of sorts, based largely on the travel author’s first-hand experiences exploring Devil’s Island Penal Colony in French Guiana, the harshest penal system in the world at the time of publication—Niles was the first woman to ever visit the island. The titular ‘unknown convict’ was in fact René Belbenoît, perhaps the most noted escapee who eventually gained US citizenship, writing two successful memoirs—The Dry Guillotine: Fifteen Years Among the Living Dead (1938) and Hell on Trial (1940). Niles herself was a multi-faceted trailblazer—involved for much of her life in women’s suffrage, a founding member of the Society of Woman Geographers, and writer of considerable renown often focusing on largely ignored civilisations, communities, or locales, from Haiti and Guiana and across much of South America. This probably the author’s most famous work, basis for the pre-Code 1929 film of the same name adapted by Sidney Howard. Scarce in the jacket.
NILES, Blair. Condemned to Devil's Island: The Biography of an Unknown Convict. Illustrated in black and white by Beth Krebs Morris. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1928. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s black cloth lettered in red to the spine and upper board, in the striking dust jacket. Printed dedication to the author’s husband with a two-page explanation by the author to front. A near fine copy, the cloth a touch mottled with the spine tips a trifle bumped, but the boards firm, the binding tight and square, and the topstain vivid. Attractive illustrated endpapers. Small previous owner inscription in ink to title page corner, else fine. The dust jacket unclipped ($3.00) with all four corners neatly cut. A few small nicks and tiny chips to the corners and spine tips, some small closed tears and faint creases, but a bright and pleasing copy overall.
A fictional biography of sorts, based largely on the travel author’s first-hand experiences exploring Devil’s Island Penal Colony in French Guiana, the harshest penal system in the world at the time of publication—Niles was the first woman to ever visit the island. The titular ‘unknown convict’ was in fact René Belbenoît, perhaps the most noted escapee who eventually gained US citizenship, writing two successful memoirs—The Dry Guillotine: Fifteen Years Among the Living Dead (1938) and Hell on Trial (1940). Niles herself was a multi-faceted trailblazer—involved for much of her life in women’s suffrage, a founding member of the Society of Woman Geographers, and writer of considerable renown often focusing on largely ignored civilisations, communities, or locales, from Haiti and Guiana and across much of South America. This probably the author’s most famous work, basis for the pre-Code 1929 film of the same name adapted by Sidney Howard. Scarce in the jacket.
