disputes and alienated themselves from many of the friends with whom they stayed. When at last they found what was to be their country home, an old presbytery over an hour outside of Paris, a dearth of house calls compounded their isolation. Carson’s letters primarily communicate her good wishes and love for Bessie and her family, with her own ailments and struggles recounted in passing. She refers to her increasingly poor health while expressing empathy for Bessie’s own (“God knows I know how expensive illness is”), and gestures at personal reasons for her infrequent replies (“It is not that I don’t love you – this silence. But we have had a very confused time”). One of their few visitors to the old presbytery was Janet Flanner, a dear friend of the couple. Carson “loved and greatly admired her older friend who seemed infinitely wiser” (Carr, p. 193). Prior to his suicide, Reeves sent Flanner “the most beautiful flowers I ever received . . . the last message I had from him . . . said, ‘From the man across the Styx’” (quoted in Carr, p. 403). Flanner took Carson’s place at Reeves’s French interment. Despite this intimacy, and her proximity, she only visited their country house once, a visit recounted in her letter to Bessie. She paints an evocative picture of the troubled couple’s attempt to make a home: “Reeves looked handsome and manly, had the hay-scented breath of a lamb, Carson seemed in good spirits, says she is settling her soul . . . and was very happy, really happy, in a confused childlike way about her house. It was part of a fairy story, I gathered”. Flanner comments on Carson’s encroaching paralysis (“she carries her left hand in her right like a memento. It will become utterly atrophied”), before expressing a general and foreboding concern for their welfare: “I suppose they really are like solid silver needles in their own haystack. Not lost I hope; but it is very deep French countryside for them to be found in”. The last letter in this collection is from Reeves to Bessie, covering his and Carson’s September trip to Rome, where David Selznick had invited Carson to work on a film script, “Terminal Station”, later called Indiscretions of an American Wife . The venture was stressful for both, ending in failure as “Selznick came roaring into town, trampling over things like a herd of buffaloes . . . Mr Big decided to write it himself”. Poignantly, Reeves writes that while both he and Carson enjoyed working with producer and screenwriter Wolfgang Reinhardt, they were relieved to be back at their country home: “Now we are safe in our little house near Paris and away from the mad hatters of Hollywood”. Together, 7 items. Book: Octavo. Original yellow cloth, spine and front cover lettered in black. Spine cocked, small mark to front cover, faint damp stain to foot of rear cover, edges and endpapers foxed, light offsetting to endpapers, small split to head of rear inner hinge, corners of three leaves creased. A good copy in like jacket, spine panel sunned and with loss to head, edges chipped and creased with two closed tears, ring mark to front panel, rear panel lightly soiled with small damp stain to foot, partial split to rear flap fold. Loosely inserted are: autograph letter signed from Carson, single sheet, written on one side in pencil, undated, with envelope, stamped and franked April 1952; photographic postcard (90 × 140 mm) from Carson and Reeves, typed on one side, stamped and franked May 1952; autograph letter signed from Carson, two sheets written on one side in pencil, 31 August 1952, with envelope stamped and franked September 1952; typed letter signed from Reeves, 3 November 1952, with envelope stamped and franked November 1952; autograph letter signed from Carson, three sheets, written on one side in pencil, undated. Letters folded with occasional marks, postcard a little rubbed, envelopes rubbed with some loss to ends, in very good condition. ¶ Hilton Als, “Unhappy Endings, The collected Carson McCullers”, The New Yorker , 3 December 2001; Martin Duberman, A Saving Remnant , 2001; Oliver Wendell Evans, Carson McCullers, Her Life and Work , 1965; Carson McCullers, Stories, Plays, and Other Writings , Carlos Dews, ed., 2017. £7,500 [158084]
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83 MELVILLE, Herman. White Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850 owned by a family friend of the author First US edition, a lovely association copy in a contemporary Italian binding, from the library of American novelist Francis Marion Crawford, inscribed on the front free endpaper “Crawford. Villa Negroni. Rome” and with his bookplate. Crawford’s father, Thomas, a renowned sculptor and friend of Melville, created the Statue of Freedom which crowns the US Capitol dome. In 1857, Melville visited Thomas’s art studio in Rome at Villa Negroni, the splendid residence of the Crawford family near the Roman Baths of Diocletian. He was impressed by the artist’s sculptures, particularly those of native Americans. Francis, who at the time was 3 years old, grew up to become a successful writer of novels and fantastic stories. Those set in Italy – such as Saracinesca (1887) – are considered his best works, and several of his short stories are classics of the horror genre. White Jacket , first published in London two months before the American edition, did much to influence the congressional prohibition of naval flogging in September 1850. “Mr. Melville has performed an excellent service in revealing . . . the indescribable abominations of the naval life, reeking with the rankest corruption, cruelty, and blood. He writes without ill-temper, or prejudice, with no distempered, sentimental philanthropy, but vividly portraying scenes of which he was the constant witness” (George Ripley, New York Tribune , 5 April 1850). Octavo (182 × 124 mm). Contemporary Italian half vellum, flat spine gilt ruled in compartments, floral gilt ornaments, marbled sides, green silk bookmarker. Bookplate of Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909), engraved by the French artist Paul Avril and designed by the Danish painter Henry Brokman. Vellum a little soiled, sides scuffed, some foxing to contents, loss to upper outer corners of pp. 113–16, affecting page numbers only, pp. 241–64 misbound at rear. A very good copy. £1,750 [156760]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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