Edens Lost. - Hardcover

Elliott, Sumner Locke.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060111917 ISBN 13: 9780060111915

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1969

Synopsis

Harper & Row, New York, 1969. Hardcover in Dust Jacket. Stated First Edition (Also Number Line to 1 on the blank verso of the last page). I found only one other signed first edition for sale on the Internet. It was selling for $100.00. Signed and inscribed on the first front end paper: 'For my Lennie, who touched me so-- and as always, with my deep love, Sumner.' Sumner was gay. Interesting how the 'deep love' in the inscription perhaps contrasts with the last sentence from his Wikipedia Profile: 'As a gay man during a time when this was socially disapproved of, Elliott was uncomfortable with his sexuality. He kept it secret until nearly the end of his life before coming out in his book Fairyland. Because of these fears, Elliott had affairs but never had any stable relationships.' On a long shot, I googled the author's name with Lenny Bernstein's. Nothing came up, but I wouldn't be surprised if there paths had crossed in one or another production. Dennis Altman nominated the book as his favourite novel in The Australian and noted: "Like all of Elliott's writings based on his formative years, Edens Lost evokes pre-Menzies Australia through writing that is beautiful and precise. I suspect Elliott is one of the greatest stylists Australian writing has produced, even if a contemporary reader may lose patience at the careful accumulation of detail and minute observation that evokes for me the Sydney in which my parents met and married. I read Edens Lost when it was first published, in the early days of gay liberation, both knowing and not knowing that only a gay man could have written this book.' Elliott won the 1977 Patrick White Literary Award. His mother, Helena Sumner Locke, was a well-regarded Australian novelist, dramatist, poet and short story writer. She died one day after his birth.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1969
• ISBN 10: 0060111917
• ISBN 13: 9780060111915
• Binding: Hardcover