in action, the network of trenches, the battlefield, and ruined towns and villages; one photograph depicting a thick barbed wire emplacement is annotated, “On the Somme, why the cavalry [could] not be used”. Also present are photos of the official victory parade in London in July 1919 and the devastation still present on the Somme after the war, including at Peronne and the famous cathedral at Albert, taken during a trip by Lady Beaumont in September of that year. Lady Violet Mary Louise Beaumont (1861–1949) was herself a key figure in the British Red Cross during the war, serving as Vice President of the West Sussex division of the Red Cross. The Slindon estate was donated to the National Trust by Lady Beaumont in her will. Landscape sextodecimo, 38 leaves of buff card (362 × 267 mm). Original padded black morocco-grain skiver, spine in compartments tooled in gilt, Baroness’s coronet vignette and Lady Beaumont’s initials to front board in gilt, board edges tooled in gilt, floral gilt turn-ins, green and gilt floral endpapers, edges gilt, binder’s stamp to rear pastedown. Over 250 photos, illustrations, poems, and newspaper cuttings of various sizes mounted verso: 224 photographs of various sizes, 1 of which loosely inserted, the majority captioned in ink; 7 original illustrations by officers and nurses, 4 of which loosely inserted, including 1 watercolour on “Slindon House” letterhead (177 × 112 mm). Extremities rubbed, corners a little worn, a couple of chips to board edges, endpapers foxed and slightly soiled, evidence of a couple of photographs missing from album. A very good copy, photographs and contents still clear and bright. £3,750 [130560] 157 YOURCENAR, Marguerite. L’Œuvre au noir. [Paris:] Gallimard, 1968 winner of the Priz Femina: “soul and blood were escaping together” First edition, first printing, inscribed by the author in red ink on the front free endpaper, “à Etienne Coche de la Ferté, qui traduire les poèmes et conserve les statues, hommage sympathetique, Marguerite Yourcenar – le sang de Zénon” (“To Etienne Coche de la Ferté, who translates poems and conserves statues, with best wishes, Marguerite Yourcenar – The blood of Zeno”). The inscription references the climax of the book, in which the protagonist, the physician and alchemist Zéno, chooses to end his life in his prison cell rather than face execution the following day. He slashes veins in his wrist and foot and contemplates his rushing death in a long and reflective scene. “Now he could understand the popular notion that this fluid is the soul itself, since soul and blood were escaping together. Those ancient errors contained some simple truths” (p. 152). Etienne Coche de la Ferté, a critic, classicist, translator, and conservator for the Louvre, was well acquainted with Yourcenar. In May 1968, at the time of this title’s publication, there was mass civil unrest in France, and Yourcenar wrote sympathetically to Coche de la Ferté, who was attempting to organize an exhibit on “Israel through the Ages”: “I realize how much the events of May were prejudicial to your enterprise. They were only a very small hindrance to me, personally, with regard to the publication of my latest book, and I was amply repaid for the few difficulties I had by the
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156 WORLD WAR I – BEAUMONT, Violet, Lady. Photograph album. Slindon House, Sussex: 1917–23 personal photo album of her wartime hospital work An outstanding album of photographs, illustrations, poems, and other ephemera compiled during the First World War detailing the use of the Slindon estate as an officer’s hospital by Violet, Lady Beaumont, the owner of the house and grounds. The album showcases the fascinating history of Slindon House, personally compiled by the house’s owner and commandant of the hospital there. Slindon House in West Sussex came into Lady Beaumont’s possession in 1913 and following extensive restoration became the home of the Officers’ Hospital, Slindon House in October 1917, managed by Lady Beaumont herself. Many aristocratic country homes were used as convalescent hospitals by the British Red Cross during the war, particularly for officers. Slindon has a diverse history of military service, and was also used as a prisoner of war camp,
housing up to 200 German prisoners at any one time, and as a station for airships patrolling the channel. It was also used by the Canadian Forestry Corps, with photographs of airships and of the sawmill used by the 114 Company of the CFC. This rich wartime history is well-documented in this album put together by Lady Beaumont (who annotates the numerous photos of herself herein as “VB”), with superb portrait and group photographs of the officers and nurses convalescing and working there. Included in the photographs are the nurses Marcia and Juliet Mansel; the sisters worked for the Red Cross in Britain before volunteering to serve closer to the front lines in French hospitals on the Western Front. Both sisters were awarded the Croix de Guerre for their service. An estimated 1,500 nurses were killed serving on all sides during the First World War, including well over 100 nurses working for the British Red Cross. A highlight of the album is a selection of captivating battlefield photographs of the Somme, personally presented to Lady Beaumont by Lieutenant King of the “N” anti-aircraft battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery. Photos show N Battery
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extraordinary spectacle of Paris during that troubled month” (quoted in Savigneau, p. 304). Yourcenar, the first woman elected to the Académie Française, was awarded the Priz Femina for L’Œuvre au noir . It was immediately praised as a masterpiece: “It seems that Marguerite Youcenar’s novel is above all, in the vehemence of its tone and its writing, in the sometimes unbearable harshness of its dialogues, a book of combat, of provocation, counter to all the partisan beliefs behind which hide most often the bloodiest of fanaticisms” (ibid.). Those few critics who disliked it focussed on Yourcenar’s lack of grace, warmth, or gentleness, and the excessive “virility” of her writing. In his essay “Madame Youcenar et les scruples du poète”, Coche de la Ferté praised these very qualities, and celebrated the beauty of Youcenar’s writing: “As well as expounding with strength and clarity, and demonstrating her mastery of many forms of knowledge, the spiritual energy which animates her is not didactic, she is rarely narrative, she is above all lyrical.” Octavo. Original white wrappers ruled and lettered in red and black, edges untrimmed. With original glassine. Text in French. Spine lightly creased with bump to foot, scattered faint marks to covers, corners slightly rubbed. A very good copy indeed, in lightly creased glassine with a couple of small chips and closed tears. ¶ Josyane Savigneau, Marguerite Yourcenar: Inventing a Life , 1993. £1,000 [161900]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
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