"BLAME IT OR PRAISE IT, THERE IS NO DENYING THE WILD HORSE IN US"

WOOLF, Virginia. Jacob's Room. Richmond: Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1922. Octavo, original yellow cloth, printed paper label on spine, uncut. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $2500.

First edition of the first full-length novel published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's Hogarth Press, and a pivotal novel that marks a major turning point for Woolf, one of only 1200 copies.

T. S. Eliot wrote to Woolf of this novel, published in 1922, a crucial year in the development of the modernist novel, "'You have freed yourself from any compromise between the traditional novel and your original gift. It seems to me that you have bridged a certain gap which existed between your other novels and the experimental prose of Monday or Tuesday, and that you have made a remarkable success.' And this, it seemed presently, was the opinion both of the reviewers and the public. Virginia was satisfied; Jacob's Room marks the beginning of her maturity and her fame" (Bell, Virginia Woolf, 319). "Jacob's Room was an important milepost for the press in several ways. It was the Woolfs' longest book published to date, it was the first novel, and it was one of the first books to be printed by R. & R. Clark of Edinburgh, thus initiating a long and fruitful association between publisher & printer" (Willis, 60). This book also marks the moment when the Woolfs decided to run their Hogarth Press as a genuine business concern: "With the publication of Jacob's Room the decision was taken to establish the Hogarth Press as a business concern and in future to publish all Mrs. Woolf's works" (Kirkpatrick, 17). With 14-page catalog of publisher's advertisements at rear; without very scarce dust jacket. Forty copies of this edition contained a tipped-in signed subscriber's slip. Kirkpatrick A6.

Text very fresh, only tiny bit of edge-wear, faint soiling to cloth. A lovely near-fine copy.