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11 BELL, Julian, & T. H. White (contrib.) Cambridge Poetry, 1929. Hogarth Living Poets. No. 8. London: Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, 1929 “We shall know better someday, but, God, what genius we had then!” First edition, first impression, of the first volume in Hogarth’s Cambridge Poetry series, including contributions from Julian Bell, William Empson, and T. H. White. This was editor Basil Wright’s own copy, with his ownership inscription to the front free endpaper, and is signed by 14 other contributors, including Empson and White, both significant authors whose signatures are far from common. The full list of signatories is: Roland Bottrall, J. Boronski, J. D. Cullen, John Davenport (who playfully adds “We shall know better someday, but, God, what genius we had then! Love John D. 1929”), William Empson, H. Romily Fedden, K. A. Matthews, J. P. A. Ragg, J. M. Reeves, Christopher Saltmarshe (“Coeditorially Kit”), Hugh Sykes, James Thornton, T. H. White, and Edmund M. Wilson. Cambridge Poetry 1929 precedes Julian Bell’s first book of poems Winter Movement , which was published the following year. It is one of 600 copies printed, and has the erratum slip laid in. Octavo. Original green paper-covered boards, spine and front cover lettered in black, front cover with design by Vanessa Bell in black. Spine neatly repaired, some light tanning to spine and to margins of boards, a little rubbing to extremities, very good condition. ¶ Woolmer 189. £1,250 [151412] 12 BELLOW, Saul. Dangling Man. New York: The Vanguard Press, 1944 Bringing together sociology and poetry in Chicago
First edition, first printing, of the author’s first book, inscribed by him on the front free endpaper, “To Kurt & Carla Wolff, affectionately, Saul Bellow”. One of the Wolffs has added “[Chicago Ap 15, 44]” beneath Bellow’s inscription and “Kurt & Karla Wolff, Chicago, Mr. 27, 1944 (H. Bookstore)” above. This is an excellent association, from Bellow to his friend and fellow writer, the influential sociologist Kurt Wolff (1912–2003). They met in Chicago: Bellow was raised there, and Wolff “had fallen in love with the region, with the people and with the situation” (quoted in Stehr) while a research fellow at the Social Science Research Council in the early 1940s. Bellow wrote this book, about a young Chicago man waiting to be drafted, during his service with the merchant marine during the Second World War. Both Bellow and Wolff were significantly engaged in one another’s disciplines: Bellow was a writer educated in sociology, and Wolff a sociologist whose literary experiments Bellow encouraged. Bellow was a Canadian-born Lithuanian-Jew who had graduated from Northwestern University with an honours in anthropology and sociology, the study of which had a marked influence on his literary style. Wolff was a Jewish German- born sociologist forced out of Germany by rising Naziism, who recounted that “after a relatively short time in America I began to write literature, in which the most important help I received was from Saul Bellow, whom I got to know in Chicago in 1943”. This is a significant association from the beginning of an intellectually fertile relationship. Octavo. Original light green cloth, spine lettered in brown, small design of man with arm outstretched on front cover in brown, top edge brown. With dust jacket. Spine a touch sunned and cocked, spine ends just bumped, cloth and edges of book block lightly soiled, edges of endpapers toned. A very good copy indeed, internally clean, in like jacket, edges toned, shallow chips to head of spine and corners, rubbing to front panel, a few short closed tears to folds and one across spine, head of front panel and flaps a touch creased, edges nicked, not price-clipped, a clean example. ¶ Nico Stehr, “A Conversation with Kurt H. Wolff”, Gary Backhaus & George Psathas (eds.), The Sociology of Radical Commitment: Kurt H. Wolff’s Existential Turn , 2007. £3,750 [157559]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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