“A BIT OF PLEASANT AND MILDLY SHOCKING ENTERTAINMENT”: FIRST EDITION OF THEY WINTER ABROAD, T.H. WHITE’S FIRST, PSEUDONYMOUS NOVEL

ASTON, James [i.e., WHITE, T.H.]. They Winter Abroad. London: Chatto & Windus, 1932. Small octavo, full yellow cloth, original dust jacket. $500.

First edition of T.H. White’s first, pseudonymously published novel, in original dust jacket.

In his second year as a university student, White was diagnosed with tuberculosis; he “was told (probably by his mother who liked to dramatize and to play on people’s feelings) that he only had six months to live.” Friends in Cambridge raised funds sufficient “to allow White to spend a year in Italy in the hope that he would recover away from the English winter and in the warmer climate of the south… He had time not only to recover his health completely, but to think and to write, and one result was his first novel, They Winter Abroad” (Brewer, 3). In a contemporary review, the New York Times deemed the book, which explores themes of love and lust with hints of sadism, “a bit of pleasant and mildly shocking entertainment.” Gallix A2.

Light foxing to edges of text block. Cloth lightly soiled. Original dust jacket price-clipped with light rubbing to edges (minor restoration to spine head). A bright copy in very nearly fine condition.