29 B a u m a n R a r e B o o k s Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, 1926 Signed Limited Edition, One Of Only 325 Signed By Hardy 29. HARDY, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented. London, 1926. Quarto, original half parchment, dust jacket. $5800. Signed limited illustrated edition of Hardy’s greatest novel, one of only 325 copies signed by Hardy, with 41 wood-engraved illustrations by Vivien Gribble and a folding map of Wessex. “Unquestionably one of the greatest novels written in the last century… among the immortal works of English literature” (Rosenbach 29:188). When Tess appeared in 1891, Hardy came into conflict with the dictates of conventional Victorian morality. After two editors had asked Hardy for changes, he decided instead “not to offer the novel intact to the third editor [Arthur Locker of the Graphic] on his list… but to send it up with some chapters or parts of chapters cut out, and instead of destroying those to publish them, or much of them, elsewhere… till they could be put back in their places at the printing of the whole in volume form” (Seymour-Smith, 411). Some of the excised chapters appeared in the Fortnightly Review and the National Observer. Tess was serialized in the newspaper Graphic from July 4 through December 26, 1891 (see Webb, 62), “deliberately modified to suit the delicacy of editors” (DNB). This later edition includes Hardy’s unexpurgated text. Purdy 77. Interior fine, corners gently rubbed; dust jacket with shallow wear to corners and head of slightly toned spine. A near-fine signed copy. “I Have Killed Her Son And I Am Not…Without Imagination” 30. GREENE, Graham. The Name of Action. London, 1930. Octavo, original blue cloth, dust jacket. $8000. First edition, first issue, of Greene’s rarely seen second novel, the publication of which was quickly suppressed by Greene due to mixed reviews and disappointing sales. Graham Greene, that “subversive hero” who forever sought, in Browning’s words, “the dangerous edge of things,” followed the success of his first novel The Man Within (1929) with this powerful tale of dictatorship and revolution (New York Times). But this much anticipated work, titled after a final line in Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” soliloquy, met with mixed reviews. Though praised by the Times Literary Supplement, the novel “sold barely 2,000 copies” (Sherry I:381-4). Greene took the reviews much to heart; he withdrew “The Name of Action from the body of his work, and no other editions [other than the American] or reprints exist” (Wobbe). Name of Action “exists only in the first English and American editions of 1930 and 1931 respectively” (Miller 8). Firstissue dust jacket, with “7/6” price. Book fine, dust jacket with only light wear and toning to extremities. A handsome near-fine copy.
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