J O N K E R S R A R E B O O K S
P R E S E N T A T I O N C O P I E S & M A N U S C R I P T S
WOOLF TO REBECCA WEST 92. WOOLF, Virginia JACOB’S ROOM Hogarth Press, 1922.
SIGNED BY VIRGINIA WOOLF AND VANESSA BELL
First edition. One of 40 ‘A Subscribers’ copies with the publisher’s tipped in printed slip to that effect, inscribed for Rebecca West and signed and dated by Virginia Woolf. Original publisher’s yellow cloth with title label to spine. An uncommonly fine copy, the yellow cloth still bright and unusually clean, with just a modicum of fading to the spine. [40147] £30,000 An excellent association copy of Woolf’s first truly experimental novel. Rebecca West was famously to review Jacob’s Room in The New Statesman the month after receiv- ing this copy, writing of the author that: “[she] has again provided us with a demonstration that she is at once a negligible novelist and a supremely important writer.” Woolf meanwhile, though admiring of West’s journalism, likened her novel The Return of the Soldier to an “over-stuffed sausage”. West and Woolf held a wary mutual regard throughout their lives and frequently reviewed each other’s work. It is a measure of West’s regard for Woolf that she was one of the very few non-Bloomsbury “A” subscribers to the Hogarth Press. “In the early days of the Hogarth Press two categories of subscribers were formed, ‘A Subscribers’ who made a deposit and received all publications of the press, and ‘B Subscribers’ who were no- tified of all publications. With the publication of Jacob’s Room the decision was taken to establish the Hogarth Press as a business concern and in future to publish all of Mrs Woolf’s works. Mr Woolf thought that in order to acknowledge the support given by the ‘A Subscribers’ to the early publications of the press each subscriber was sent a signed copy of Jacob’s Room” - Kirkpatrick ( A Bibliography of Virginia Woolf ). Kirkpatrick A6a
93. WOOLF, Virginia KEW GARDENS Hogarth Press, 1927. Third edition, the first edition illustrated throughout by Vanessa Bell, number 62 of 500 copies, this copy one of a small number signed by Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Original paper covered boards, decorated by Bell in blue, green and brown, in publisher’s plain glassine. A fine copy, exceptionally clean and crisp, with a little wear and a small stain at the corner base of the spine just extending onto the rear cover. Glassine somewhat frayed with both flaps detached, but present. An exceptional copy of a very fragile work. [40231] £15,000 Originally published in 1919, Kew Gardens was Woolf’s third work and the first to contain illus - trations by her sister Vanessa, but these were limited to a woodcut frontispiece and small tailpiece. A flood of orders meant a second printing was immediately called for. This third edition, pub - lished some eight years later is, in terms of production, an entirely newwork: larger in format with cover illustrations in colour and new illustrations throughout by Vanessa Bell. Though not called for by the limitation, Woolf and Bell appear to have signed a small number of copies under the limitation statement (a straw poll suggests about 100). Due to the fragility of the paper covered boards, the vast majority of copies show at least some repair or have significant damage to the spine. It is rare to find any copy, unsophisticated in a fine state and exceptionally so signed. Kirkpatrick A3; Woolmer 7
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