The Seeds of Time.

FIRST EDITION, a few leaves at close dog-eared at top corner, pp. 483, 8vo, original red cloth, now mostly faded to pink, to varying degrees and most of all to the gilt-lettered backstrip, lean to spine, edges and endpapers a little spotted, dustjacket with a typographic design by Berthold WOlpe, a little chipped and nicked, good. Inscribed by the author on the flyleaf: 'To Billie & Rosalind, gratefully. Their sympathy has never failed me over this book - which seemed ill-starred, They believed in it, To them this copy, at last! Irene Rathbone, October 1952'. Her final novel, a complex portrait of a 'much-divided society' (blurb) in the lead-up to the Second World War. The printed dedication is to her friend Storm Jameson, whose advice regarding the novel included trimming some of its political content.