The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough [FIRST EDITION / 1977]

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

FIRST EDITION / 4th PRINTING [1977] HARPER & ROW

Hardcover with dust jacket in excellent condition.

Dust jacket is very good;  a few sealed edge tears and some shelf wear.   But overall, strong vibrant and does not show its age. 

Book itself is excellent; top of flyleaf page has been trimmed [see last photo]  - Otherwise, looks and reads like new. 

The Thorn Birds is a robust, romantic saga of a singular family, the Clearys. It begins in the early part of this century, when Paddy Cleary moves his wife, Fiona, and their seven children to Drogheda, the vast Australian sheep station owned by his autocratic and childless older sister; and it ends more than half a century later, when the only survivor of the third generation, the brilliant actress Justine O'Neill, sets a course of life and love halfway around the world from her roots.

The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph's course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie's except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones - but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.