Morrison Jessamy Pseud (1 results)
Published by W.H. Allen 1963
Seller: Blackwell's Rare Books ABA ILAB BA, Oxford, United KingdomBlackwell's Rare Books ABA ILAB BA
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
US$ 142.77
US$ 33.00 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
FIRST EDITION, pp. 204, crown 8vo, original red boards, backstrip lettered in gilt, dustjacket very bright, with a miniscule nick at head of front panel and a hint of rubbing to extremities, very good. The debut of an author, or at least of a nom-de-plume - recent research by Brad Bigelow on his Neglected Books website has deduc…ed it to be among the pseudonyms of the prolific Peter de Polnay, a Hungarian émigré writing in English, here (Bigelow conjectures) protecting his identity in order not to brook conflict with his Catholicism for the orientation of its sexual themes. The novel is, the blurb announces, 'in the tradition of "The Well of Loneliness"' - in other words, an exploration of lesbianism among the privileged classes. Under her own pseudonym of 'Gene Damon', publisher and collector Barbara Grier (in her 'Lesbiana' column for The Ladder) proposed the novel as one of the best of its type: 'Written by a woman wholly sympathetic to lesbianism, this novel develops into possibly the funniest lesbian story yet written. Neither Ronald Firbank nor Compton Mackenzie reached the comic heights this book reaches. [.] This is a wonderful book'.