- Paperback
- Publisher: Alfred a Knopf (April 1972)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0394717406
- ISBN-13: 978-0394717401
- Product Dimensions: 18.3 x 10.9 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,343,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Out of Africa
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Product Description
Product Description
In this book, the author of Seven Gothic Tales gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya. She tells with classic simplicity of the ways of the country and the natives: of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom: of her guests, from the Prince of Wales to Knudsen, the old charcoal burner, who visited her: of primitive festivals: of big game that were her near neighbors--lions, rhinos, elephants, zebras, buffaloes--and of Lulu, the little gazelle who came to live with her, unbelievably ladylike and beautiful.
The Random House colophon made its debut in February 1927 on the cover of a little pamphlet called "Announcement Number One." Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, the company's founders, had acquired the Modern Library from publishers Boni and Liveright two years earlier. One day, their friend the illustrator Rockwell Kent stopped by their office. Cerf later recalled, "Rockwell was sitting at my desk facing Donald, and we were talking about doing a few books on the side, when suddenly I got an inspiration and said, 'I've got the name for our publishing house. We just said we were go-ing to publish a few books on the side at random. Let's call it Random House.' Donald liked the idea, and Rockwell Kent said, 'That's a great name. I'll draw your trademark.' So, sitting at my desk, he took a piece of paper and in five minutes drew Random House, which has been our colophon ever since." Throughout the years, the mission of Random House has remained consistent: to publish books of the highest quality, at random. We are proud to continue this tradition today.
This edition is set from the first American edition of 1937 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The Random House colophon made its debut in February 1927 on the cover of a little pamphlet called "Announcement Number One." Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, the company's founders, had acquired the Modern Library from publishers Boni and Liveright two years earlier. One day, their friend the illustrator Rockwell Kent stopped by their office. Cerf later recalled, "Rockwell was sitting at my desk facing Donald, and we were talking about doing a few books on the side, when suddenly I got an inspiration and said, 'I've got the name for our publishing house. We just said we were go-ing to publish a few books on the side at random. Let's call it Random House.' Donald liked the idea, and Rockwell Kent said, 'That's a great name. I'll draw your trademark.' So, sitting at my desk, he took a piece of paper and in five minutes drew Random House, which has been our colophon ever since." Throughout the years, the mission of Random House has remained consistent: to publish books of the highest quality, at random. We are proud to continue this tradition today.
This edition is set from the first American edition of 1937 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
I HAD A FARM in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
I HAD A FARM in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Baroness Karen Blixen --a.k.a. Isaac Dinesen-- had a farm in Africa, and on that farm the wide-eyed Danish émigrée lived her best years, the years of vivid memory, out of which she was to live and breathe and write for the rest of her life. In Africa she married, ran a coffee plantation, met "the dark races," got syphilis, and fell in love. These events shaped the fiction she was to write later, when she returned home to Denmark after the coffee farm foundered, a casualty of faulty administration and just plain bad luck.
An exile in her own country, the reluctant repatriate poured her heart into "Out of Africa." The book is unsurpassed for an atmosphere of heart-wrenching bereavement, yet serene resignation. Here is Eve after the Fall --the taste of apple lingering in her mouth-- groping to restore with words her Paradise lost. Here the storyteller weaves a tapestry of lean, vast landscapes simmering under the equatorial sun; of races worlds apart living in precarious peace; of friends --black and white--; of love; of heartbreak, and of loss.
"Out of Africa" is Isaac Dinesen's superb act of creation by recollection, a Paradise Restored you will often want to come back to.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Probably one of the greatest books i've ever read about a remarkable woman who had the courage to be different. You really have the feeling you are with her in Africa and just have to read it, it's much better than the film!!!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A classic because one is never aware that the author
is writing a novel -- you never catch her "writing".
She tells her story of Africa, "unconscious" that it's
being read by anyone but herself.
It's a curse and a blessing that Hollywood made a movie
out of her book. A blessing in the sense that the movie
may have introduced new readers to her work; a curse in
the sense that the movie resembles the book only in the
superficial elements of some of the "plot".
A delicious irony is added by the fact she had to use a
male pseudonym in order to get published.
is writing a novel -- you never catch her "writing".
She tells her story of Africa, "unconscious" that it's
being read by anyone but herself.
It's a curse and a blessing that Hollywood made a movie
out of her book. A blessing in the sense that the movie
may have introduced new readers to her work; a curse in
the sense that the movie resembles the book only in the
superficial elements of some of the "plot".
A delicious irony is added by the fact she had to use a
male pseudonym in order to get published.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Out of Africa
Excellent value. Modern Library Edition, well printed and bound and having an attractive book-jacket. Prompt service from the Book Depository. Read more
Published 13 months ago by History enthusiast
Good delivery, but not at its best.
Haven't read the book yet, but it came with some wrinkled pages and not at its best. Good delivery though, on time.
Published 17 months ago by Castabur
Deeply Engaged in Living
Baroness Karen Blixen's famous memoir of her years on the coffee plantation high above Nairobi is significant for her description of what today's Kenya was like in the early part... Read more
Published on 5 July 2004 by Donald Mitchell
Deeply Engaged in Living
Baroness Karen Blixen's famous memoir of her years on the coffee plantation high above Nairobi is significant for her description of what today's Kenya was like in the early part... Read more
Published on 5 July 2004 by Donald Mitchell
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