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The collection was promoted and published by Sassoon after Owen’s death with the backing of Edith Sitwell. The work, which is often described as the greatest collection of First World War poetry, contains all of Owen’s best-known poems, including “Dulce et decorum est”, “Insensibility”, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Futility” and “Strange Meeting”. Quarto. Original grey boards, titles to spine gilt, publisher’s device blind to front cover, top edge blue, others untrimmed. With dust jacket. Photogravure portrait frontispiece with tissue guard. Negligible creasing and touch of wear to spine ends and tips, offsetting to endpapers; else a near-fine, notably fresh copy, the dust jacket uncommonly well- preserved, with light soiling and scuffs to panels, slight creasing and nicks to extremities, and small chips to spine ends and tips. £5,750 [134273] 77 PARKER, Dorothy. Not So Deep as a Well. Collected Poems. New York: The Viking Press, 1936 Inscribed “unexpectedly” in paris to a fellow writer First edition, signed limited issue, number 416 of 485 copies numbered and signed by the author, this copy additionally inscribed, and scarce thus, on the half title: “To Hugh Mills with love, admiration, and envy, Dorothy Parker. Paris – unexpectedly – August, 1939.” Mills (1906–1971) was an English playwright and screenwriter who worked in Hollywood prior to his move to Paris. It is likely that he and Parker were already acquainted before their “unexpected” encounter: they frequented the same Hollywood haunts, with Parker a regular figure in Stanley Rose’s bookshop, across the street from the Screen Writers Guild on Hollywood Blvd, next door to Musso & Frank, the Back Room of which catered to “writers, artists, and hard-drinking intellectuals”. This inscription marks an
inauspiciously timed encounter, dated as it is just one month prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Octavo. Original black quarter cloth, pink paper boards, spine lettered in gilt, vignette in white to boards, top edge black, gold silk bookmarker. Housed in the gold slipcase, as issued. Title page and chapter headings printed in black and pink. Neat bookseller label of Stanley Rose to rear pastedown. A sharp, bright, near-fine copy, a few spots of rubbing, some light offsetting from illustrations, a little toning to gutters of endmatter. Slipcase lightly worn, a few marks and cracks to joints, else firm and bright. ¶ Hadley Meares, “Stanley Rose’s Humble Bookstore”, LAist , 19 March 2019, available online. £1,750 [153704] 78 PIRANDELLO, Luigi. Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore. Firenze: R. Bemporad & Figlio, Editori, 1921 Six Characters in Search of an Author First edition, first printing, very scarce, of the Nobel prize- winner’s ground-breaking piece of absurdist metatheatre. The play was published as volume 3 of the playwright’s “Maschere Nude” sequence. The debut performance in Milan was greeted with shouts from the audience of “Manicomio!” (“Madhouse”), though it was nonetheless a quick success and had a run on Broadway by 1922. This copy has a faint ownership inscription of an Italian in Marseilles, “Riccardo Gianella, Marsiglia”, and the faint blind- stamp of the Societa Italiana degli Autori to the title page. The first edition is scarce in trade, with no copies listed at auction; this is the second example that we have handled. Octavo. Original white wrappers, titles in black and red. An exceedingly fresh copy, some minor nicks to wrapper fore edges, wrappers pulling somewhat from book block but sound, internally clean, excellent condition overall. £2,750 [154007]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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