BOYLE, Kay.. Short Stories.. Paris: The Black Sun Press, 1929, 1929.

Price: US$5788.25 + shipping

Description: First edition, first printing, number 10 of 15 copies signed by the author and printed on japon. This is Kay's first book, which inaugurated her career as one of the best American short story writers of the 20th century. The collection was welcomed with outstandingly positive reviews upon publication, the American literary critic Eugene Jolas describing it as "a turning point in the evolution of American literature"; William Carlos Williams stated Boyle picked up where Emily Dickinson left off and proclaimed that her stories "assault our sleep" (quoted in Mellen 1994, p. 139). According to Joan Mellen, Boyle was the most distinguished and consistent short story writer for the New Yorker from 1931 to the mid-1950s; "Kay Boyle might even be considered the creator of what came to be known as the New Yorker story" (Mellen 2004, p. 75). The volume was among the earliest produced by the Black Sun Press, founded in 1928 by Harry and Caresse Crosby; both were good friends of Boyle. The collection comprises seven stories: "Uncle Anne" and "Spring Morning" were published here for the first time; the other five had previously appeared in magazines. The total edition comprised 185 copies, of which 150 were printed on Holland Van Gelder Zonen (to be sold at the bookshop of Harry F. Marks in New York), and 20 printed on Papier d'Arches and designated for France. Provenance: bookplate of the American pharmaceutical entrepreneur, philanthropist, and collector Carl Weeks (1876-1962) on the front pastedown of the card folder. Weeks built Salisbury House in Iowa, where he housed an impressive library of early 20th-century literature. It included suppressed works by James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, and a wealth of works by the Black Sun Press. Weeks bought most of his Black Sun Press collection from Harry F. Marks, their primary distributor in America. Weeks evidently prized Harry and Caresse's work; his acquisitions also included Crosby's Aphrodite in Flight (1930) and Shadows of the Sun (1928), Archibald MacLeish's New Found Land (1930), a signed copy of James Joyce's Collected Poems (1936), and the manuscript of D. H. Lawrence's The Escaped Cock. Chambers A2a. Joan Mellen: Kay Boyle: Author of Herself, 1994; Joan Mellen, "Boyle, Kay" in Susan Ware & Stacy Lorraine Braukman, eds, Notable American Women, 2004. Octavo. Original wrappers, spine and front cover lettered in black and red, black illustration on rear cover. With glassine jacket. Housed in the publisher's silver card folder with silk ties. Printed in red and black throughout. Free endpapers and blanks excised, couple of spots of foxing, otherwise clean. A near-fine copy in the well-preserved glassine, and retaining the original folder, slightly rubbed with a couple of short splits to joints.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom