Descripción
1929 limited special first collected edition. No. 140 of 235 copies. original yellow buckram cloth octavos w/gilt spine titles. Vol. I: Introduction by Arthur Waley; Biographical Memoir by Osbert Sitwell; frontispiece portrait sketch of Firbank by Augustus John; contains "Vainglory." ix, 234pp. condition: spine strip is darkened; yellow cover cloth is somewhat age darkened with a few brown age spots & a smudge or two; some foxing of endpp; else a Very Good copy with untroubled text. Vol. II: frontispiece portrait sketch of Firbank by Wyndham Lewis; contains "Odette," "Inclinations" and "Caprice." 248pp. condition: spine strip is darkened; yellow cover cloth is somewhat age darkened with a few brown age spots & a smudge or two; some foxing of endpp; small tear @ fore edge margin of last page; else a Very Good copy with untroubled text. Vol. III: frontispiece portrait sketch of Firbank by Augustus John; contains "Valmouth" and "The Princess Zoubaroff." 212pp. condition: very small tear in cloth @ spine head; touch of age darkening of yellow cloth; touch of endpp. foxing; couple of lightly bent corners; else a Very Good copy with untroubled text [in remnant of plain paper dust wrapper]. Vol. IV: frontispiece colored portrait sketch of Firbank by Charles Shannon; contains "Santal" and "The Flower Beneath the Foot." 168pp. condition: spine strip is darkened; yellow cover cloth is somewhat age darkened with brown age spots & smudging; else a Very Good copy with untroubled text. Vol. V: frontispiece portrait sketch of Firbank by Augustus John; contains "Prancing Nigger" and "Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli." 152pp. condition: spine strip is darkened; yellow cover cloth is somewhat age darkened with a few brown age spots; some foxing of endpp; else a Very Good copy with untroubled text. The high quality Abbey Mills paper accounts for the lack of foxing in the text. Although 235 numbered copies were printed by The Westminster Press, only 200 were offered for sale. The original dates of publication of the Works were as follows: Vainglory (1915), Inclinations (1916), Odette (1916), Caprice (1917), Valmouth (1919), The Princess Zoubaroff (1920), Santal (1921), The Flower Beneath the Foot (1923), Sorrow in Sunlight [Prancing Nigger was the American title, issued by Brentano and adopted here] (1925) and Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli (1926). A Study in Temperament, printed in the same volume as "Odette d'Antrevernes" in 1905 is omitted from this edition by the author's expressed wish (just as well perhaps owing to the jejune nature of this work, but it might have been useful for the record to have had it included). The Cambridge educated Firbank (1886-1926), dilettante son of wealthy parents, has been described as "a subterranean link between Oscar Wilde and Ivy Compton-Burnett." Although considered a minor novelist in his time, his novels are works of art and artifice and have influenced many writers in the latter half of the 20th century. English orientalist Arthur Waley (1889-1966) writes in the Introduction to this set: "The chief charge against Firbank is that he was silly. . . . [but] If . . . there exists anyone who like myself cannot discover in most modern fiction from first to last line any connection at all with literature, he will feel for Firbank's thin streak of genius an enthusiasm that admirers of our 'great' contemporary novelists will find hard to understand." A very nice set of this scarce edition. N° de ref. del artículo 1124
Contactar al vendedor
Denunciar este artículo
