Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
ROBERT GRAVES.. Good-Bye to All That. An Autobiography. (SIGNED). Jonathan Cape, London, 1929.
Price: US$1291.60 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Third impression, issued in November 1929, the same month as the first state and the subsequent second (expurgated) state. This copy signed by the author on the dedication leaf and dated the year after publication. 8vo. 446pp. Red cloth lettered in gold at the spine. With a portrait frontispiece and seven photographs, maps and reproductions. Top edge lightly dust soiled and with a tiny trace of light narrow browning to the free endpapers. A single tiny nick to the cloth at the head of the backstrip. Former owner name and date (1943) neatly inked to the head of the front free endpaper, and with a tiny dealer plate to the base of the front pastedown. Very good indeed in non-price-clipped dust wrapper, lightly marked, soiled, tanned at the spine panel, and split into three parts at the natural folds with some careful subsequent restoration to rejoin them, leaving seven small areas of loss to the spine panel. Laid-in are three type-written sheets, the first of which details the full unexpurgated text that was found on p.290 of the first state edition, an inclusion which so incensed Sassoon that he and Graves barely spoke for many years. The other two sheets comprise the full text Sassoon's 'verse letter' to Graves ('the most terrible of his war poems') which originally appeared on pp.341-343 and was also excised from all subsequent states. Signed copies of Graves' celebrated (and sometimes vilified) Great War memoir are scarce indeed. See Higginson A32.
Seller: Clearwater Books, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$1937.41 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: First edition, first state, retaining one passage and one poem which so infuriated Siegfried Sassoon that a second state expurgating these elements was immediately issued. Tipped to the title page in a slip of paper bearing the author's inked signature. 8vo. 446pp. Red cloth lettered in gold at the spine. With a portrait frontispiece and seven photographs, maps and reproductions. Top edge dust soiled and very lightly spotted. A little damp marking to the base of the upper board, and a small area of further damp marking to the fore edge, just impacting the margin of half a dozen text leaves. Binding cracked at the title page but still perfectly sound. A little occasional marginal soiling and a narrow strip of light partial toning to the free endpapers. Some bruising to the backstrip ends. A good, bright copy in non-price-clipped dust wrapper designed by Len Lye, somewhat dust soiled and darkened, with some creasing, nicking and a little edge loss, now addressed by some professional restoration. Graves' celebrated Great War memoir, this unexpurgated edition exceedingly uncommon (Higginson, A32, notes that less than one hundred copies exist probably an underestimation - and that it might perhaps be deemed a prepublication state rather than a true first edition, yet it remains the keystone for any serious Graves or Great War collection).
Seller: Clearwater Books, London, United Kingdom
Graves, Robert. Good-Bye To All That - SIGNED by the Author. London Jonathan Cape 1929, 1929.
Price: US$4843.52 + shipping
Description: First edition, first printing, second-state. Published by Jonathan Cape, London, in 1929. SIGNED. This is a very good copy. This is the expurgated second-state, without the Siegfried Sassoon poem. The supplied dust wrapper, designed by Len Lye and with the authors photograph by Alfred Cracknell, is generally clean but with mild handling marks. There is slight rubbing to the edges and a slight spot of soiling to the rear panel. It has been neatly price clipped, but retains the 10s. 6d. net price. The ex-Libris label pasted to the front end-paper is that of Michael Bernard Thorold, a member of the Scots Guard and peerage. The boards have a little light chipping to the top and tail of the spine and slight fading, but remain tight and sharp at the corners. The authors signature is present on the full title page in blue ink, and dated to 1979, fifty years after the publication date. Overall, this is a very good copy of a fine, but controversial work. It was my bitter leave-taking of England," he wrote in a prologue to the revised second edition of 1957, "where I had recently broken a good many conventions".
Seller: John Atkinson Books ABA ILAB PBFA, Harrogate, United Kingdom