The Heart of the Furnace

New York/London: D. Appleton-Century Company. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dj. 1937. First Edition. Hardcover. [good sound copy, top corners slightly bumped, light age-toning and dust-soiling to edges of text block; jacket has tiny tears and very slight paper loss at several corners, a little darkening to spine panel]. "This is a deeply moving story of a friendship between two blind men -- and of the tragedy that brought death to one and life to the other. It is a story of passion and quiet tenderness, of loyalty and hate, and of a love that meant faith and belief and life to a man whose world would otherwise have been forever dark." (Short version: a woman comes between them.) The Australian-born author, per the jacket bio, was educated in England and later became the art critic for a newspaper in Cape Town, South Africa (the setting for this novel). Earlier in life he had been a playwright, but this would appear to have been his first novel; he published one more, "From the Ends of the Earth," the following year. .