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158 WEBSTER, Mrs Alfred. Dancing as a Means of Physical Education. London & Bath: David Bogue & Simms and Son (Manchester: printed by George Simms & Co.), 1851 Quarto (275 × 218 mm). Contemporary calf by Hayday (stamped at foot of front free endpaper verso), sometime rebacked with the original spine laid down, gilt stylized lotus flower decoration to smooth spine, black label let- tered “Dancing, its Uses and Abuses”, gilt ornamental panels to sides, pale blue moiré silk doublures and endpapers, broad gilt turn-ins, gilt gauffered edges, some 36 binder’s blanks at end. Letterpress printed within blue orna- mental borders. Binding discoloured and marked, black biro annotation to back cover, some dampstaining to endleaves, scattered foxing. first and sole edition, in a lavish, if somewhat compromised, binding by the fashionable London bookbinder James Hayday, ap- parently intended for presentation to Queen Victoria , carrying her crowned monogram to sides. Victoria’s passion for dancing is well attested; on her 14th birthday she took “considerable delight in a rare opportunity to expend her frequently repressed energies in the quadrille and the waltz . . . The state visit of Grand Duke Alexander of Russia in May 1839 provided another memorable evening’s danc- ing for Victoria, when she found herself twirled round the ballroom by the grand duke in a mazurka, before taking delight in the qua- drille, the valse, and the new German dance, the Grossvater” and even in old age “when she danced she was transformed; her ener- gies seemed undiminished . . . She could still dance the quadrille with grace” (Rappaport, pp. 113–14). Mrs Webster ran the Cheltenham Dancing Academy before be- coming dancing-mistress at the Ladies’ College, where she “drilled the girls, and taught them to walk gracefully. Webster insisted on all pupils attending the afternoon dancing class in white satin shoes and silk stockings, and was so majestic that even [the head- mistress] Miss Proctor was in awe of her” (Steadman, p. 7). Her book is a celebration of the improving capability, both moral and physical, of the practice of dance, as well as an attempt to “rescue it from the censure cast upon it in consequence of its abuses” (p. 1), making the serious point that there is a “want of exercise in fe- male education”. She opposes the corset vehemently: “I invariably urge their wear being discontinued by all ladies, old and young” and recommends “a close-fitting body of stout jean made to lace up in front”. Loosely inserted is an unrecorded broadside poem entitled “The Cheltenham Dancing Academy, March 1860” (folded bifolium, printed on pages 1 and 2 only), which gives an amusing picture of
Webster taking a dance class, naming a number of the girls, de- scribing their attempts at quadrilles, waltzes, minuets, and the Lancers (a form of quadrille) and giving a memorable picture of the awe-inspiring Mrs Webster herself: “The door then opens, and in comes, / All queenliness and state, / The Mrs. Webster, all a blaze, / And followed by her mate”. Rappaport, Helen, Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion , ABC–CLIO, 2003; Steadman, Florence Cecily, In the Days of Miss Beale , E. J. Burrow, 1931. £2,000 [129885] 159 WEST, Rebecca. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. The Record of a Journey through Yugoslavia in 1937. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1941 2 volumes, octavo. Original vivid green cloth, titles gilt to spines, single fillet panel to front boards, map endpapers printed in red and black. With the dust jackets, printed in red and black on cream hammer finish stock, both unclipped. With 32 photogravure plates from photographs. Free endpapers differentially browned from the presence of the jackets, which are a little rubbed, lightly tanned on the spines and with a few minor splits and chips, but overall a very good set. first edition, inscribed by the author on the half-title of volume I: “With much gratitude to Yvonne Ffrench from Rebecca West, 1942”. Ffrench was the author of well-received biographies of Sarah Siddons, Mrs Gaskell, Ouida, and Florence Nightingale, together with a number of works of Victorian history including a study of the Great Exhibition, but was certainly better known in her day as a connoisseur of, and dealer in Old Master prints. Reviewed at the time as a “brilliant mosaic of Yugoslavian travel” ( New York Times ), and “a masterpiece, as astonishing in its range, in the subtlety and power of its judgement, as it is brilliant in ex- pression” ( The Times ), Black Lamb and Grey Falcon continues to be in- cluded lists of the greatest travel and non-fiction works of all time. In his introduction to the 2006 reissue, Geoff Dyer draws attention to West’s realisation that the best travel writing in fact addresses “the state of [the writer’s] own soul at that moment”, judging the book to be “one of the supreme masterpieces of the 20th century”. Inscribed copies are far from common. Not in Robinson. £3,750 [124556]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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