"SHE WAS BOUND TO THE VAST FIXED WHEEL OF CIRCUMSTANCE": LIMITED FIRST UNEXPURGATED EDITION OF D.H. LAWRENCE'S SUN, ONE OF ONLY 150 COPIES PRINTED AT THE BLACK SUN PRESS

LAWRENCE, D.H. Sun. Paris: Black Sun, 1928. Octavo, original cream paper wrappers, uncut, original gold chemise with grosgrain ties. $1250.

Limited first unexpurgated edition, one of only 150 copies printed on Holland Van Gelder Zonen paper (out of a total edition of 165 copies) at the Black Sun Press for sale at the bookshop of Harry Marks New York and featuring color frontispiece illustration of the sun-god by the author, in handsome publisher's gold chemise.

"Sun was first written at Villa Bernardo at Potorno towards the end of 1925… Lawrence was trying to place the story by February of the next year, but his efforts were unsuccessful with his usual publishing outlets. Curtis Brown wrote that it was 'too pagan except for the highbrow reviews.' It was finally accepted by New Coterie, where it was published in No.4 for Autumn 1926… Sometimes in early 1928 Harry Crosby wrote to Lawrence wanting to buy manuscripts and expressing an especial interest in 'Sun'; Lawrence tries to locate the New Coterie manuscript, but was unsuccessful, for in a letter from Villa Mirenda in April 1928 he told harry Crosby that he was sending the 'final manuscript' of 'Sun' and expressed the wish that it could have been printed in its unexpurgated form. It was from this manuscript that the Black Sun edition was printed…. In payment the Crosbys sent Lawrence three pieces of gold in a snuff box which had once belonged to the Queen of Naples" (Roberts A35). Proceeded by the 1926 London first edition of only 100 copies. The first edition was only 20 pages; this unexpurgated [i.e. rewritten from memory] edition is 38 pages. Roberts A35b.

A bit of wear to chemise and fraying to ties. Book lovely and fine.