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66 McALMON, Robert. Being Geniuses Together. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938 “What an important period piece” First edition, first impression, the copy of Roger Senhouse, the co-owner of the book’s publisher Secker & Warburg, with his ownership signature to the front free endpaper, his notes to the margins and endpapers, and associated letters. Senhouse has made a lengthy pencilled note on the front free endpaper beginning “The book Cyril C[onnolly] is so desperate to find. There is no other copy available. Why no index?”. He notes it was an “early ‘failure’ – but what an important period piece”. Senhouse has annotated the text with references to mentioned individuals, noting typos, and occasionally exclaiming over the author’s poor style and errors. Loosely inserted is a note card with Senhouse’s pencilled list of McAlmon’s Contact Editions, along with a typed letter signed (8 February 1954) from literary biographer Frank MacShane, thanking Senhouse for his efforts to find out the whereabouts of McAlmon for him. MacShane writes that he saw Alice Toklas in Paris the previous month, and she said he was in America, acting as a salesman. “McAlmon completed Being Geniuses Together , a memoir of his life abroad, in 1934, but he had to wait until 1938 before Secker & Warburg agreed to publish it after considerable excising. Its salty frankness alienated some old friends like Joyce but captivated recent ones like Katherine Anne Porter. McAlmon’s best-known book, Being Geniuses Together has proved indispensable for any study of expatriate life and
writing in the 1920s” ( ANB ). His best-known book, it is one of the scarcest (barring limited editions), and copies with the dust jacket in such nice condition as the present example are very uncommon. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Housed in a dark blue cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. Light
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toning and trivial nicks to a few pages else a near-fine copy, in very good jacket, spine panel lightly sunned, minor chipping and creasing at extremities, lightly soiled, price intact without repair. £6,000 [145672] 67 MacDIARMID, Hugh . A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons Ltd, 1926 First edition, first impression, first issue in dark blue cloth, an exceedingly sharp copy in the jacket, inscribed by the poet, “To J. E Brownson from Hugh MacDiarmid, Glasgow 1943” on the front free endpaper. This early poem by MacDiarmid was the central masterpiece of Scottish modernism.
INEXHAUSTIBLE LIFE
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