THE LIGHTHOUSE ALWAYS SAYS YES (First edition in Fritz Wegner dustwrapper)

First impression of the true first edition. In the attractive dustwrapper designed by Fritz Wegner. ***Near fine in green cloth-covered boards with silver titles to the spine. The silver is still nice and bright having been protected by the dustwrapper. The boards are clean and unmarked. Head and tail of spine slightly creased. Corners sharp. No reading lean to the binding. Internally also near fine with no inscriptions. No creases or tears. ***In the original pictorial dustwrapper which is complete, but quite heavily rubbed and creased at the extremities, especially at the top of the spine, with a few associated small closed tears. The back panel is quite grubby, with a small stain and a ring-mark. Hardly any fading to the spine colour. The dustwrapper has not been price clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of 30s net. ***374 pages. 203mm x 138mm. ***'Following the end of the Second World War, his fellow officer and friend Ralph Partridge introduced Brenan to the fabled Bloomsbury Group. It was through Partridge that Brenan met Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington, and Virginia Woolf. As soon as he was released from military service he packed a rucksack and left England aboard a ship bound for Spain. He was disillusioned with the way of life in England and with the stifling social and sexual hypocrisies of British bourgeois society. He rebelled against becoming part of it and, being a romantic and adventurer, resolved to seek a more breathable atmosphere in which to live. He also wanted to educate himself and become a writer. ***As he records in his best known travel memoir, South from Granada, he felt ashamed that his public school upbringing had left him with a very poor education. He shipped 2,000 books out to his chosen destination - an area deep in Andalucia known as 'La Alpujarra'. Ralph Partridge and Dora Carrington, recently married, also visited him with Lytton Strachey in 1920, and Carrington's fondness for Brenan is thought to have started on this trip. She carried on an extensive correspondence with Brenan for the next several years and in 1922 they had a brief affair, which was rapidly discovered by Partridge. There was a year of silence between the three, before reconciliation took place and the often-stormy friendship continued for the remainder of their lives. ***In 1930 he married the American poet Gamel Woolsey. In 1934 the Brenans left Spain and were unable to return until 1953, partly because of the Spanish Civil War. ***During the Second World War he was an Air Raid Warden and a Home Guard. They spent this time in Aldbourne and Brenan expressed his feelings of exile from Spain by completing three major works on Spanish life and literature. ***On his return to Spain he began a series of autobiographical works, including South from Granada, A Life of One's Own, and A Personal Record. After the death of Gamel Woolsey in 1968, a young English student of the poetry of the Spanish saint - St. John of the Cross - joined Gerald as his secretary and companion. This young lady is called Lynda Jane Nicholson Price, and she remained with him for 14 years. ***Gerald Brenan died on January 19, 1987 while in the hands of the Spanish Medical Services who had undertaken to care for him. He was acclaimed for his services to Spanish literature. A plaque dedicated to his work was fixed to the house where he had lived in Yegen, it reads: 'In this house for a period of seven years [1920-1934] lived the British Hispanist GERALD BRENAN, who universalised the name of Yegen and the customs and traditions of La Alpujarra. The Town Hall, grateful, dedicates this plaque.' YEGEN, 3 JANUARY, 1982.' [Wiki] ***An uncommon book by Bloomsbury Group author Gerald Brenan. *** For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.…