Brief Candles

Aldous HUXLEY

Item#: 109509 We're sorry, this item has been sold

"THE MORE AND MORE CRAZILY HE HAD DESIRED HER, THE MORE HE HAD SEEMED TO WANT TO HURT HER, TO HURT HIMSELF TOO"

HUXLEY, Aldous. Brief Candles. London: Chatto & Windus, 1930. Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket, uncut.

First trade edition of Huxley's fifth collection of short fiction.

"Huxley's final collection of uncollected short stories… put[s] forward few positive solutions to life's problems. As with most of his collections, Brief Candles is structured around a specially written and accomplished novella," "After the Fireworks" (O' Hara, 51); the volume also contains "Chawdron," "The Rest Cure" and "The Claxtons." Preceded by a signed limited edition. Eschelbach & Shober 12. Centenary Catalogue 37.

Interior fine, one small mark to cloth spine; rare original dust jacket with only very mild toning to spine. Unusual in such nice condition.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
Wormhole Tiny pinhole-sized trails left by bookworms as they eat through a text block. Much more common in older books printed on handmade papers with a high rag content than in books printed on manufactured papers made from wood pulp with a higher acidic content.
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