Strangers. [Stories.]

White (Antonia)

Published by The Harvill Press, 1954

About this Item

FIRST EDITION, pp. [vi], 159, crown 8vo, original black boards, backstrip lettered in gilt, hint of mustiness to boards, textblock edges a little toned, dustjacket a little browned and chipped with some light spotting to rear panel, very good. Inscribed by the author on the flyleaf, to a close friend and fellow author: 'To Emily, with very much love, from Tony, 1954 - Rye'. The recipient was Emily Coleman, the American author who, as Emily Holmes Coleman, wrote a solitary novel, 'The Shutter of Snow' (1930) - based on her experience of postpartum psychosis, following the birth of a son from her first marriage, and confinement in a mental hospital. Mental illness, following a breakdown in 1922, also cast a shadow over White's life and work - represented here by the 1928 story, 'The House of Clouds', drawing on her experience at Bethlem Hospital (also the basis for 'Beyond the Glass', published in the same year as this collection). White and Coleman's friendship was an enduring, if necessarily volatile, one; it had been formed in the crucible of Peggy Guggenheim's Hayford Hall in Devon in 1933, where the two of them joined Djuna Barnes, who was there writing 'Nightwood' - the novel for which Coleman's status as the co-dedicatee (alongside Guggenheim), having played a key role in its editing and publication, constitutes a large part of her literary legacy. Upon their first meeting, Coleman recognised White as a kindred spirit ('like me with the life taken out', as she tartly put it), though their points of commonality were not necessarily positive; in her later diaries, White considered Coleman 'the most loyal person I know'. Seller Inventory # 77001

Bibliographic Details

Title: Strangers. [Stories.]

Publisher: The Harvill Press

Publication Date: 1954