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Evelyn Waugh. Brideshead Revisited. The Sacred and Profane Memories of Charles Ryder. London: Chapman & Hall, 1945 [1944...
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Description
A very fine pre-publication special edition, one of only fifty copies inscribed to his close friend Lady Diana Cooper
Evelyn Waugh. Brideshead Revisited. The Sacred and
Profane Memories of Charles Ryder. London: Chapman & Hall, 1945
[1944].8vo. Original blue wrappers, with yapp edges, with printed labels on upper cover, title label printed in blue, limitation label printed in red, uncut; housed in a cloth folding chemise and quarter morocco folding case.
PRE-PUBLICATION EDITION, THE TRUE FIRST EDITION OF BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, one of only 50 copies printed for the author for distribution to friends. A VERY FINE ASSOCIATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY WAUGH TO LADY DIANA COOPER on the front flyleaf: "For Diana / Too little, but I hope not too late / with love from / Evelyn."
Waugh requested that this special edition be privately printed for distribution to the author's closest friends, in order to solicit feedback and make any changes to the text. Six months before publication, fifty copies were specially bound and sent to friends for Christmas. Waugh, in Dubrovnik [as a member of the Military Mission to Tito] waited eagerly for the first reactions... (Selina Hastings, Evelyn Waugh, London, 1994, p. 490). Several notable changes to the novel were made because of his friends' comments, including re-writing the ending and a few name changes.
Lady Diana Cooper was the daughter of the Duke of Rutland and the wife of Sir Alfred Duff Cooper, who was created Viscount Norwich in 1952. She met Waugh in 1932 while acting in the Max Reinhardt London production of The Miracle. With her consent, Waugh memorialized her as the character Mrs. Stitch, who first appears in Scoop and recurs in Officers and Gentlemen and A Tourist in Africa. Jacqueline McDonnell devotes an entire chapter to the Cooper/Stitch similarities in her 1985 book Waugh on Women. Lady Diana's and Waugh's correspondence was published as Mr. Wu and Mrs. Stitch in 1991, edited by Lady Diana's granddaughter, Artemis Cooper. It contains a letter from Diana, written 18 January 1945, acknowledging her receipt of this copy, and her pleasure in reading it (p. 81).
In her son's 2014 book of his mother's letters to him, entitled Darling Monster, John Julius Norwich describes Waugh's relationship with his parents:
"[Waugh] had been a regular visitor at Bognor before the war and now the war was over he came back into our lives. He had always been a little bit in love with my mother: she had always been a little afraid of him...What she feared was his manner, his prickliness and not least his intelligence, for which she felt herself to be no match. Another complication was provided by my father, who went through periods of disliking Waugh intensely-the feeling being entirely mutual-though they made it up in the end."
Condition: Hint of toning to spine; slightest rubbing to yapp edges. Some spotting to endpapers, otherwise an extremely fine and fresh copy.
Provenance: Lady Diana Cooper (presentation inscription, by descent to her son); Viscount Norwich, sold in 1990; purchased from Maggs Bros. Ltd., (1990), Catalogue 1128t, item 62. From the William A. Strutz Library.
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Auction Info
2024 June 27 Important English and American Literature: The William A. Strutz Library, Part I, Rare Books Signature® Auction #6295 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
June, 2024
27th
Thursday
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