Mine Own Executioner
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
A taut and psychologically rich work of mid-twentieth-century British fiction, Mine Own Executioner chronicles the moral and professional crisis of Felix Milne, a lay psychoanalyst who takes on a deeply troubled patient — a war veteran haunted by violent impulses — against the advice of his colleagues and the stability of his own fractured marriage. Nigel Balchin constructs the narrative with surgical precision, presenting Milne as a man acutely aware of his own limitations yet unable to resist the compulsion to help, even at great personal cost. The novel uncovers the dangerous intersection of professional hubris and genuine compassion, asking how much responsibility one person can bear for another's fate. Written with Balchin's characteristic dry wit and unflinching psychological realism, the tone balances intellectual tension with an almost unbearable sense of dread as events spiral toward their inevitable conclusion. A landmark of postwar British literature, it remains a compelling and morally serious portrait of a man undone by his own conscience.
Author: Nigel Balchin
Format: Hardback
Published: 1947, The Reprint Society, London
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
A taut and psychologically rich work of mid-twentieth-century British fiction, Mine Own Executioner chronicles the moral and professional crisis of Felix Milne, a lay psychoanalyst who takes on a deeply troubled patient — a war veteran haunted by violent impulses — against the advice of his colleagues and the stability of his own fractured marriage. Nigel Balchin constructs the narrative with surgical precision, presenting Milne as a man acutely aware of his own limitations yet unable to resist the compulsion to help, even at great personal cost. The novel uncovers the dangerous intersection of professional hubris and genuine compassion, asking how much responsibility one person can bear for another's fate. Written with Balchin's characteristic dry wit and unflinching psychological realism, the tone balances intellectual tension with an almost unbearable sense of dread as events spiral toward their inevitable conclusion. A landmark of postwar British literature, it remains a compelling and morally serious portrait of a man undone by his own conscience.