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incorporating gilt-bordered blue and black cloth onlays. Housed in a custom red cloth solander box. With 8 photographic colour plates and 21 wood-engraved illustrations in text. Spine toned, a little rubbing to extremities, rear cover slightly bowed, marks to spine and rear cover, small damp stain to corner of rear pastedown, intermittent faint foxing to contents, otherwise clean. A very good copy, the front cover bright. £4,750 [162001] 120 RADCLIFFE, Ann. The Mysteries of Udolpho. London: printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, 1794 the archetypal gothic novel First edition of one of the founding texts of Gothic literature, the most popular title by Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823); from the collection of the distinguished British book collector Eric Quayle, with his book label in the first volume. Through The Mysteries of Udolpho , Radcliffe is particularly responsible for popularizing the “haunted castle” Gothic trope, Udolpho being directly parodied in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey , and influencing many other, later books such as Wilkie Collins’s Woman in White . Even into the 20th century, the atmosphere of Udolpho lingered to haunt books such as Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca . In The Collector’s Book of Detective Fiction (1972), Quayle cites Udolpho as a forerunner of crime and mystery novels (pp. 15–16). In his Collector’s Book of Books (1971), Quayle comments on this copy, noting that it has “all the half-titles so often missing in novels of the period that have been through the binder’s hands” (p. 30). Four volumes, duodecimo (171 × 100 mm). Contemporary tree calf, neatly rebacked with sheep and recornered, orange morocco labels. Complete with half-titles. Slight scratch and worming to a couple of covers, contents fresh with gentle foxing, chip at foot of vol. II leaf F8 just shaving text, and head of vol. IV leaves L5 and L6 not affecting text. An excellent copy. ¶ ESTC T62063; Lowndes 2035; Rothschild 1701; Summers 434; Tinker 1703. £8,750 [149183]
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119 PROCTOR, Mary. Evenings with the Stars. London: Cassell and Company, Ltd, 1924 the mythology of stars First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper: “For Mrs. Gurney Fox, in appreciation of a very pleasant evening, from the Author”, with the author’s own pencil corrections to the text, and in some places eliding outdated information. This beautifully illustrated guide to stargazing is divided into 12 chapters, or “evenings”, each one dedicated to observing a different constellation. After graduating from the London College of Preceptors, Proctor went on to a career as a populariser of astronomy: “her articles were published in Science , her father’s magazine Knowledge , Scientific American , and after 1897 in Popular Astronomy . An acclaimed lecture in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago led to popular engagements, a contract with the New York board of education, and lecture tours in the USA, Canada, England (1908–9), Australia, and New Zealand”. Crater Proctor on the moon is named after her. Mrs Gurney Fox held a residence at Crockham Hill, where the family would – according to contemporary sources – host balls, tea parties, as well as meetings of the West Kent Women’s Institute. She is recorded in a number of diary entries of 1922 and 1924 by the influential social worker Eileen Younghusband (1902–1981), who remembers visiting her at Crockham Hill House. It is likely Proctor is referring to one such educational evening in her inscription. Octavo. Original grey cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, blocked in blind, and decorated with a brown architectural design
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121 RAHON, Alice; MIRÓ, Joan (illus.) Sablier couché (Hourglass Lying Down). Paris: Editions Sagesse, 1938 “more of a talisman than a book”: inscribed to peggy guggenheim First and signed limited edition, one of 75 copies only, signed and numbered by the author, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “á Peggy Guggenheim, avec le grande amitié d’Alice Paalen, le 14 Janvier 1939”; at the foot of the page she has inscribed two lines from her poem “Muttra” (“Seins délivrés qui volez et chantez, à l’inverse de la pie qui se remplit de son chant”), and on the rear free endpaper, “On ne mettra jamais le feu à cette grange . . .”; the frontispiece is signed and numbered 17/75 in pencil by Miró. This is the second of the three books of poetry by surrealist poet turned painter Alice Rahon, which she published under her married name, Paalen. Upon publication it was praised by André Breton, who considered it to be “more of a talisman than a book” (MOCA, p. 7). Rahon was born in France, moving to Paris in her twenties and arriving at the height of the avant-garde. Rahon’s work was included in two exhibitions at Art of This Century, Guggenheim’s New York gallery: 31 Women (1943) and The Women (1945), which emphasized the role of female artists in the modern avant-garde. In 1945 the San Francisco Museum of Art presented the first of two solo exhibitions of her work.
Rahon’s first husband was the Austrian-Mexican artist Wolfgang Paalen: in 1939, the year this copy was inscribed, he had an exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim’s recently-opened Guggenheim Jenune Gallery in London. Rahon’s work has gained new acclaim in recent years following major Surrealist survey shows such as In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States (2012) at LACMA and Fantastic Women (2020). Rahon exhibited regularly in prominent galleries across the United States and Mexico, as well as Paris and London. Their circle of friends included André Breton, Paul Éluard, Anaïs Nin, Pablo Picasso (with whom Rahon had a love affair), Leonora Carrington, Man Ray, Joan Miró, Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo. She later settled permanently in Mexico, becoming a citizen and a leading member of Mexico’s avant- garde community. After her divorce she re-established herself under her mother’s maiden name, Rahon. Octavo. Original wrappers bound in a decorative vellum, with black and orange calf onlay binding on yellow calf by Georges Leroux after a design by Miró, dated 1985, spine lettered in red and black, reversed calf doublures and endpapers. Housed in a quarter yellow calf chemise with grey boards and reversed calf lining, all housed in a yellow calf entry slipcase with grey cloth boards. Frontispiece etching printed in red on a yellow paper cutout pasted down on Arches laid paper, lower edge untrimmed (sheet size: 16 × 20.5 cm). A fine copy. ¶ Malet- Cramer, No. 5. Museum of Contemporary Art, Alice Rahon: Poetic Invocations , 2019. £22,500 [150750]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
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