PRESENTATION-COPY

BLIXEN, KAREN.

Den afrikanske Farm. (Out of Africa).

(Copenhagen), Gyldendal, 1958.

8vo. Bound uncut, partly unopened with the original printed front-wrapper in a full cloth binding. With author's presentation to half-title: "Philip Ingerslev / fra / Karen Blixen. /  "Je respondrai."". Very light wear to extremities, otherwise a nice and clean copy. 298, (3) pp. 

Presentation-copy to Blixen's lawyer of the fourtheenth's edition of the great author's immensely popular work, her second publication, which was first published in English in 1937 and is now a world classic. Ingerslev, as the lawyer for Karen Blixen and the executor of her estate, he assisted – with support from the Dinesen family – in establishing the Rungstedlund Foundation, thereby ensuring the preservation of the Rungstedlund estate for posterity, which now serves as the seat of the Danish Academy.
In Africa Karen Blixen adopted Denys Finch Hatton’s family motto “Je responderay” (“I will answer”), underlying its ethical meanings with her own interpretation, “I will answer for my words and actions, I will be true to myself, I will be responsible”.

The first Danish edition of "Out of Africa" is translated by Blixen herself into her native language. It appeared after the English edition, but before the American one, and the Danish edition is rarer and more difficult to find in fair condition than both. It appeared in numerous editions within the author's lifetime and was translated into several languages.

The legendary Danish writer, Karen Blixen-Finecke (pseudonym: Isak Dinesen) (1885-1962), was a Danish baroness, who married her cousin, the Swedish Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, in 1914. They soon moved to Africa, where they ran a coffee-farm near Nairobi, and the happiest years of Blixen's life were spent here (she used to say that "Africa made me"). The farm in the Ngong Hills is the centre of this world famous novel. She divorced her husband, who was cheating on her and gave her syphilis, in 1922, and in 1932 she moved back to Denmark after the farm had gone bankrupt and her lover, Denys Finch-Hatton, had died in a plane-crash. She spent the remaining 30 years of her life in Denmark, and died a legendary writer. She greatly influenced writers and cultural personas of the generations to come, and many authors recognize the direct impact she has had on their writings. Several of her novels have been filmatized, most famously "out of Africa" with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize twice, she was elected honorary member of "The American Academy of Arts and Letters" (1957), and her portrait is printed on the Danish 50 kr. notes. She is the absolutely most famous of all modern Danish writers, and the only one of international fame.

Order-nr.: 62142