South Wind
London, Martin Secker, 1922 [deluxe edition]/ [1917].
Octavo, [ii], 464 pages printed on blue paper watermarked 'Brookwood | British Made | Linen Bond'.
Navy cloth lettered and ruled in gilt; fore- and bottom edges uncut; second half unopened; covers a little rubbed and flecked; endpapers a little browned; some slight discolouration about the edges of the text block; an excellent copy.
Number 109 of 150 copies of this deluxe large-paper issue on blue paper signed by the author. Loosely inserted is an autograph postcard initialled by Norman Douglas, addressed to his friend Ralph Straus, prolific novelist and biographer: 'c/o T. Cook & Son, Via Tornabuoni, Florence. 2 July 1920. Hope you got mine of 22 and 27 [June]. No proofs have come as yet, tho' I expect them every day. They can send the whole lot in a batch. I will return them by the next post. Don't dream of correcting them yourself. I'll do it. And tell me how that operation went off. I am in the mountains, high up, but within reach of Cook's. N.D.'. The proofs in question were for 'They Went'. In his biography of Douglas, Mark Holloway writes: 'On the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 19th [of July 1920] Straus was bombarded with postcards informing him that the proofs had not arrived, had probably got lost, ought to be replaced by ordering a new set, and that Douglas was fast melting into a grease spot in the heat. On the 22nd a letter to the same effect' (page 281). We can now add this postcard to the list! Straus had written an early positive review of 'South Wind', which proved to be Douglas' most popular title. In relation to this large-paper issue Douglas wrote to the publisher Martin Secker, encouraging him to increase the proposed price, and to consider increasing the print run: 'People who are so wasteful as to spend two [guineas] could easily screw themselves up to three ... [You could] easily risk printing 150 copies at three guineas; you might consider, even, whether 200 would not meet the case. There are so many Americans and lunatics about just now'. He was pleased with the result, describing it as 'Very choicely got up! Distinguished' (quoted in Holloway, page 308). Woolf A19b ('The first de luxe issue of a book by Douglas').
Item #130935
Price (AUD):
$1,500.00