The Hedgehog.

H.D.

Publication Date: 1956

About this Item

London: The Brendin Publishing Company. The Curwen Press. 1956. Small 8vo. Original green paper boards with front cover lettered in black within black rules and title lettering in black to spine; enclosed within green dust jacket; black and white vignette illustrations in the text by George Plank; pp. [vi], 77, [3]; spine ends bumped with small chip at head; margins of the wrappers darkened and a little spotted; foxing to the foredge; spine of the boards with signs of humidity impact strangely not affecting wrappers; offsetting from end papers reaching a few pages in from the beginning; otherwise internally good. First edition, one of 300 copies."Madd, c'est pas un nom" and by that she meant, "Madge, isn't a name at all".One of the most prolific women poets of the Modernist era, The Hedgehog was H.D.'s (Hilda Doolittle) only work for children and a scarce title that was initially begun in 1924 as a pacifist treatise. H.D.'s first husband joined the British Army to serve in World War I and subsequently, H.D. took over his role as the assistant editor of The Egoist. In 1916, she went onto publish her first poetry collection, Sea Garden (Constable). Her brother was later killed in action in 1918.In the same year, she began a forty-year relationship with the iconic novelist Bryher who used her financial status to promote the careers of many of the writers of the Modernist era including Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company and William Carlos Williams to name but a few under her patronage. In the early 1930s, Bryher and Macpherson built Villa Kenwin in La Tour-de-Peliz, Switzerland and H.D. wrote the book whilst living in Switzerland. During World War II, Bryher used the funds from her inheritance and the safe position of Villa Kenwin to provide crucial passage to the poet Walter Benjamin and more than 100 Jewish refugees escaping the Nazi regime. The Hedgehog details the story of Madge, a fatherless child living with her mother in Switzerland - protected from the reality of WWII as it draws near but not safe from the turbulence and volatility of growing up. From her anxieties surrounding the knowledge of mysterious herissons (hedgehogs), her woes soon expand into more adult concerns as she discovers what it means to exist on the precipice of the adult life.

Seller Inventory # 2121163

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Hedgehog.
• Publication Date: 1956
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included