Tchelitcheff Paul (1 results)

FIRST EDITION THUS, PRESENTATION COPY, twice inscribed by the author, to his sister "for Audrey / a very happy Christmas 1937 with Edward's love", and below "for Bevis Hillier with great pleasure at meeting you and for your having rescued this book / from Edward James / Amsterdam March 1981". Some poems in this collection were previously published by Duckworth. With a fascinating manuscript essay by Hillier across 10 pages (endpapers, blanks, and in the margins of some text pages) beginning, "I came to see Edward James in Amsterdam on March 7 1981 ? to talk to him about John Betjeman, whose life I was writing .? I had brought him John Betjeman's new Church poems ? and this book for him to sign ? I had bought it for £40 the day before at the Heywood Hill bookshop in Curzon Street. It is inscribed to Audrey, his much unbeloved sister ? who did James out of a fortune? He drew a grey pigeon round the earlier inscription & wrote 'End of Audrey'." Hillier goes on to recount his time with James in Amsterdam, what they talked about and the people they met. Large quarto. Original pink cloth boards lettered in gilt to upper board and spine, top edge trimmed, others uncut. Spotting to first and last few leaves, more heavily to endpapers, upper corners bumped. Pictorial dust jacket lacking spine panel and with other loss to extremities. A good copy overall, notable for Hillier's absorbing original essay.