Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
E.M.Forster. A Letter to Madan Blanchard. The Hogarth Press, 1931.
Price: US$25.67 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Very Good in orginal illustrated cream card wraps, hand stitched, with cover design by the artist John Banting. First Edition, First Impression 1931. No.1 in the series The Hogarth Letters , published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press. pp27 with B&W engraving of Prince Lee Boo after George Keates. No names, markings or inscriptions. Clean bright text block. Wraps slightly age toned. Rear has a crease at fore edge. Now protected in clear acetate dust jacket. E.M. Forster was inspired to write 'A Letter to Madan Blanchard', after coming across George Keate's 1788 account of Lee Boo, the second son of a Pacific Islands chief 'Abba Thulle', (Idebul) who died of smallpox after being brought to London. In August 1783, an East Indiaman, the 'Antelope', under the command of Captain Henry Wilson, was wrecked on a reef off the Pelew Islands ( now the Republic of Palau ). The Captain and crew developed good relations with the Chief and islanders, and when they eventually departed in a small ship they had built and named the 'Oroolong', after the island, they were asked to take the Chief's second eldest son back with them to England. The Wilson's took him into their home in London, where he was dubbed "The Black Prince", feted and admired for his charm and intelligence. He also attended school before his untimely death six months after he arrived. One sailor, Madan Blanchard, remained on the island when the 'Oroolong" left, was adopted by the family of Ibedul, provided with wives and took up the islanders' way of life. In this imaginary letter, E.M.Forster writes to Blanchard, ( who was illiterate and had been dead for around 150 years) and tells him what happened to Lee Boo once he left his island home. "I want to know why you stopped behind when the others went", he asks. Forster's dislike of Empire comes strongly through the letter. He sees Lee Boo as a 'puppet", "too harmless and people like that don't seem quite real". The East India Company, he asserts, planned to educate Lee Boo and "send him back to rule the islands for us . oust Qui Bill ( his brother) from the succession, conquer the Artingalls with musket fire, and reign over corpses and coconuts in a gold laced suit".
Seller: Barracks Books, Nash, United Kingdom
Price: US$100.38 + shipping
Description: 8vo, 141pp. black and white illustrations. A good hardback copy. Boards lightly edge worn and marked. Binding slightly cracked at inner hinges. No dust jacket. With an introductory letter by Virginia Woolf.
Seller: Sainsbury's Books Pty. Ltd., Camberwell, VIC, Australia
Price: US$150.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: A good copy of the scarce first edition in the original orange cloth stamped in black (cloth has some darkening, light wear, and a few smudges; 'Printed in England' ink stamp on title page).
Seller: Arundel Books, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Price: US$320.82 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Second impression of the true first edition, published in October, 1931 (the same month as the first impression). ***Very good in the original dark-blue cloth-covered boards with gilt titles to the spine. The gilt is still nice and bright. The boards are slightly rubbed, marked and discoloured with age and handling, with a small splash mark on the front board near the spine. Head and tail of spine slightly creased. The spine is nice and clean, and most unusually, without the usual fading (please see scans). There is no splitting or tearing to the fragile cloth covering to the boards. There is a very light vertical reading crease to the spine. Internally the book is also very good, with no inscriptions, and with none of the usual offsetting or foxing. Pages clean. No creases or tears other than some light production creasing to some of the pages. printed on nice quality thick laid paper - unusually, the last eight-page sheet is printed on very thin paper (five printed pages and three blank). Spine tight. No dustwrapper. ***188mm x130mm. 325 pages. ***'"The Waves" is critically regarded as Virginia Woolf's most experimental work, consisting of ambiguous and cryptic soliloquies spoken mainly by six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny and Louis. Percival, a seventh character, appears in the soliloquies, though readers never hear him speak in his own voice. The dialogues that span the characters' lives are broken up by nine brief third-person interludes detailing a coastal scene at varying stages in a day from sunrise to sunset. As the six characters or "voices" speak, Woolf explores concepts of individuality, self and community. “Each character is distinct, yet together they compose a gestalt about a silent central consciousness”, according to a reviewer. In a 2015 poll conducted by the BBC, "The Waves" was voted the 16th greatest British novel ever written. The difficulty of assigning genre to this novel is complicated by the fact that "The Waves" blurs distinctions between prose and poetry, allowing the novel to flow between six not dissimilar interior monologues. The book similarly breaks down boundaries between people, and Woolf herself wrote in her Diary that the six were not meant to be separate "characters" at all, but rather facets of consciousness illuminating a sense of continuity. Even the term "novel" may not accurately describe the complex form of The Waves as is described in the literary biography of Woolf by Julia Briggs (An Inner Life, Allen Lane 2005). Woolf called it not a novel but a "playpoem". The book explores the role of the "ethos of male education" in shaping public life, and includes scenes of some of the characters experiencing bullying during their first days at school.' (Wiki) ***A second impression of the true first edition of "The Waves" - the modernist classic by Virginia Woolf. A very good copy in the original cloth, and with no fading to the colour on the spine, which is exceedingly uncommon. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.
Seller: Orlando Booksellers, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Price: US$350.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First edition. Edited by Margaret Llewelyn Davies. With an Introductory letter by Virginia Woolf. Slight wear, a very near fine copy lacking the scarce dustwrapper.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Price: US$673.71 + shipping
Condition: As New
Description: A beautiful facsimile dust-jacket accompanies this book. Produced from a first impression [1931] issue. It has the price of 8s. 6d. net to the spine as well as stating: This dustjacket is designed by:VANESSA BELL - [Virginia Woolf's Sister] - Housed in a durable plastic sleeve for future protection. - Blue cloth rebind with gilt/gold writing to the spine which has been written onto the spine. The boards are clean and remain firmly attached to page block. All housed beneath the accompanying dustjacket. The pages have age-related browning, soiling and heavy foxing throughout. Pages are otherwise clean and tightly bound. On the first blank endpage, there is a small image of Virginia Woolf, when she was about 20 years old. She certainly was a beauty of her time. There is also a photocopied image of her famous purple signature. At the very end of the book is a photocopy of an old newspaper article headed: "I CANNOT GO ON" - WOMAN WRITER'S SUICIDE - At the inquest at Newhaven, Sussex, to-day, on Mrs. Virginia Woolf, whose body was recovered from the River Ouse near her home at Rodwell last night, a verdict of suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed was returned. - Then, follows a lot more information about Virginia Woolf and her life etc. - It's very sad. - Also have Virginia Woolf's Last will written in 1930 [2 pages] which I will include with the sale. It was only when I got a copy of this will that I saw that her first Christian name was Adeline. {Adeline Virginia Woolf} - E N D - Our orders are shipped within 1 or 2 business days. - Thanks for your interest and I hope you like the book enough to buy it.
Seller: Modern_First_Printings, EAST SUSSEX, United Kingdom
Price: US$866.20 + shipping
Description: First edition, first impression, of this compilation of recollections by working-class women, with an introductory letter by Virginia Woolf. This copy retains the scarce dust jacket, and is one of the small number of Hogarth Press jackets to utilize the wolf's head logo designed by McKnight Kauffer. Edited by Margaret Llewelyn Davies (1861-1944), the general secretary of the Co-operative Women's Guild, the present volume makes available the voices of working women such as "a felt hat worker", "a guild office clerk", and "a public-spirited rebel." Under Davies' leadership, the guild experienced a growth in membership and increased its political activities; due to pressure from the guild, maternity benefits were included in the National Insurance Act of 1911. Woolf praised the authentic style of the book, describing it as having "qualities even as literature that the literate and instructed might envy" and noting the privileged insight it gives to lives that are otherwise passed over. "These voices are beginning only now to emerge from silence into half articulate speech. These lives are still half hidden in profound obscurity. To express even what has been expressed here has been a work of labour and difficulty. The writing has been done in kitchens, at odds and ends of leisure, in the midst of distractions and obstacles - but really there is not need for me, in a letter addressed to you, to lay stress upon the hardship of working women's lives" (Introductory Letter). This copy was owned by Dr Edith Eugenie Johnson (1872-1966), bearing her bookplate on the front pastedown and blind stamp on the frontispiece. Johnson pioneered the use of gas anaesthetic in California, and from 1911 to 1926 she was Palo Alto's only female doctor. She was nicknamed the "White Angel" due to her willingness to provide medical care regardless of the patients' ability to pay. Kirkpatrick and Woolmer describe the first edition as bound in yellow cloth; this copy appears in a variant orange cloth. The bibliographers also differ on the print run: Kirkpatrick notes 1,500 and Woolmer notes 2,000. Kirkpatrick B11; Woolmer 250. Octavo. Original smooth orange cloth, spine lettered and ruled in black. With dust jacket. Photographic frontispiece, 7 plates. Slight soiling to spine and rear cover, short split to front inner hinge, bookseller's notes in pencil to font pastedown, nick to frontispiece, couple of small marks to contents, gauze visible between pp. 72-3 but holding firm; jacket slightly chipped and nicked, loss to head of spine with tear extending to rear panel, unclipped: a very good copy in good jacket.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
WOOLF, Virginia.. The Waves.. London: The Hogarth Press, 1931, 1931.
Price: US$2566.53 + shipping
Description: First edition, first impression, of the author's most ambitious and experimental novel, hailed by Cyril Connolly as her "masterpiece. It is one of the books which comes nearest to stating the mystery of life and so, in a sense, nearest to solving it" (p. 49). The text is woven from the interior voices of its six protagonists, who were in part modelled on E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, T. S. Eliot, Mary Hutchison, Vanessa Bell, and Woolf herself, revealing their respective loves and loneliness. Kirkpatrick A16a; Woolmer 279. Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise, 2008. Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in dark blue morocco, titles and decoration to spine gilt, raised bands, single rule to boards gilt, inner dentelles gilt, burgundy coated endpapers, all edges gilt. A fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom