62
62
interests lay in publishing, in 1925 Friede bought a half interest in Boni and Liveright (which had been responsible for the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in 1922) and became the firm’s vice president at the age of 24. In 1928 Friede founded the firm of Covici-Friede with Pascal Covici. The firm published e. e. cummings, Radclyffe Hall, and John Steinbeck. Loosely inserted is a typed letter signed from the Holmes Book Company, California, to bibliophile Thomas A. Larremore (1898–1975), dated 13 November 1935, confirming that the Paris edition of this title predates the Boston edition. Octavo. Original pale yellow-brown wrappers lettered in black, spine ruled in black, fore edge untrimmed. Slight loss to spine ends, wrappers soiled, folds split, edges a little nicked. A very good copy, internally fresh and clean. ¶ Boughn A8 a.i. £1,500 [157491] 63 HEANEY, Seamus. Door Into the Dark. London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1969 From one laureate to another First edition, first impression, with a pleasing literary association, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to a fellow poet, “for Dan Hoffman Slánte! Seamus Heaney”. Hoffman (1923–2013) studied at Columbia University in the 1940s, where he was a member of the Boar’s Head poetry society at the same time as Allen Ginsberg. His first collection, An Armada of Thirty Whales (1954), was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets by W. H. Auden, who praised it for “providing a new direction for nature poetry in the post-Wordsworthian world”. In 1973 Hoffman was made Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. He befriended Heaney from an early date and visited Ireland for literary events. Octavo. Original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Top edge and endpapers faintly foxed, a near-fine copy in very good jacket, dark adhesive marks to verso, else sharp and bright. ¶ Brandes & Durkan A5. £2,000 [155353] 64 HOLDEN, Inez. Born Old, Died Young. London: Duckworth, 1932 First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Mummy, with best love from Inez, March 1931”, the date amended in another ink to 1932. This science fiction title, depicting the “giddy antics of the roaring twenties” (Scholes), is Holden’s second book. Beatrice Inez Holden (1903–1974) was a British author and journalist whose work was admired by Graham Greene and Anthony Powell. A glamorous socialite, Holden became a close friend and
63
lover to George Orwell after they were introduced at a dinner party held by H. G. Wells in April 1941. This, combined with Orwell’s criticism of Wells as “naïve”, resulted in Wells evicting Holden from the mews flat, behind his grand house in Hanover Terrace, which he had lent to her after the bombing of her Albany Street flat the previous year. “While such anecdotes are entertaining, Holden deserves a primary, not a supporting, role in her own story” (Scholes). Octavo. Original black cloth, titles in gilt to spine. With dust jacket. Minimal rubbing to corners, the binding otherwise sharp, very faint foxing to edges, else internally clean and fresh. A near-fine copy in the very good jacket, very slight wear to corners, a couple of small stains to spine and rear panels, head of spine panel discreetly stabilized on verso. ¶ Lucy Scholes, “Re-Covered: From Bright Young Thing to Wartime Socialist”, The Paris Review , 2 August 2019, available online. £975 [144950]
64
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
51
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker