Self Portrait Letters: Signed (2 results)
More imagesPublished by London: Herbert Jenkins, 1953, 1953
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United KingdomPeter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB.
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
US$ 3,838.17
US$ 29.81 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketFirst edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to his biographer and bibliographer Jasen, "To David from Plum, P. G. Wodehouse". Loosely inserted are two typed letters signed "Plum" by Wodehouse to Jasen, providing the researcher with recent life updates and information about his earlier years; they are accompanied by… the original envelopes and a handwritten list of queries by Jasen. The first letter, dated 21 November 1961, provides a list of answers to Jasen's nine queries. One of Wodehouse's responses reads, "I lived for quite a while in a room over the stables at the school, and then rented various houses in the village. I don't know if you have read a very early book of mine called The Little Nugget, but the scene of that was Emsworth House". In the second letter, dated 7 March 1964, Wodehouse discusses the health of his wife Ethel and observes "I am in my usual state of despair after finishing a book. What I want is some scene or some central idea that I can sit and mull over. I have hundreds of pages of ideas for books, but they are all for the start [and] present the same problem - viz. where do I go from here?". David A. Jasen (1937-2022) was the dedicatee of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963). A ragtime scholar and performer, he shared a passion for music with Wodehouse, a famed musical lyricist. The published collection of correspondence Performing Flea is titled after Seán O'Casey's jibe against Wodehouse: "If England has any dignity left in the way of literature she will forget for ever the pitiful antics of English literature's performing flea" (The Daily Telegraph, 8 July 1941). Jasen 74a; McIlvaine A76a. Octavo. Photographic portrait frontispiece. Original blue boards, spine lettered in gilt, facsimile Wodehouse signature to front cover in gilt, publisher's device in blind to rear cover. With dust jacket. Spine lightly toned, ends bumped, a few spots of foxing to fore edge; jacket rubbed, shallow loss at head of spine, extremities a little chipped, a few short closed tears, vertical crease to spine, unclipped: a very good copy in like jacket.
Centennial Portfolio: Fifty Original Prints by Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Celebration of its Centennial [Limited Edition, Signed with Large Self-Portrait by Kurt Vonnegut]
UPDIKE, John (foreword); VONNEGUT, Kurt, et al. (contributor)
Published by American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, 1998
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: Lorne Bair Rare Books, ABAA, Winchester, VA, U.S.A.Lorne Bair Rare Books, ABAA
Contact seller5-star sellerFirst Edition. Quarto (31.25cm); pale gray cloth, with titles stamped in black on spine and front cover; 112pp; illus. Though not called for, this copy has been signed by Kurt Vonnegut on the half-title page, with an original hand-drawn self-portrait dated May 12, 1999. Small scuff to lower margin of copyright page, tiny smudge…at mid-spine, else Fine. Housed in a custom clamshell case. Nicely-produced volume collecting works of art by fifty Academy members. With a foreword by John Updike, including works by Kurt Vonnegut (portrait of Kilgore Trout), Paul Cadmus, Leonard Baskin, Frank O. Gehry, Jasper Johns, Wolf Kahn, Jacob Lawrence, Mary Frank, Roy Lichtenstein, Paul Resika, Richard Meier, George Segal, and others. Uncommon signed. Signed.
