Sunflower (the dust jacket of which is initialed by Andy Warhol)

Handsomely bound in finely woven black linen cloth spine stamped brightly in gold; and in beige paper-covered boards. A very good plus copy, crisp and tight, virtually unread. In very good minus dust jacket with the price carelessly torn off at the top of the inside front flap. The rear panel features a striking photo of Rebecca West, and it has b een initiallyed "aw" for Andy Warhol at the top left-hand corner. An unusual copy, signed and inscribed by her friends Victor Hugo and initialled Andy Warhol. This copy is inscribed in blue flair ink by artist Victor Hugo: "! Viva tu Nadia (with a large heart & D.D! con terminie; Victor 1987" across the front paste-down and front endpaper to the late D.D. Ryan of Harper's Bazaar Fashion Fame. I have copies of books signed & inscribed to Dorinda or D.D. Ryan by Andy Warhol, Harold Arlen, and Truman Capote, her close friend. D.D. Ryan (Dorinda Dixon Ryan), was a fashion designer at Harper's Bazaar where she worked with Diana Vreeland and Richard Avedon. Included in Dorinda's circle of friends were: Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, Hilary Knight, Kay Thompson, and many others. D.D. was married to John Barry Ryan, III, and the couple is mentioned in Frewin's book "The Late Mrs. Dorothy Parker" on p.305 in a paragraph listing a gathering "of social notables." A beautiful actress of the 1920s faces painful decisions about her lovers and her future Star of the stage, Sunflower has everything but the attention she craves from her long-timeand marriedlover, Lord Essington, a brilliant and intense man occupied with more intellectual thoughts. Eager for a more rewarding experience, Sunflower must decide whether another great man, the Australian Francis Pitt, will offer a more traditional relationship and happiness.Written during West's own psychoanalysis and never finished, Sunflower ponders topics of the power struggle between the sexes, and a woman's freedom to determine her romantic destiny. Drawn heavily from West's own relationships with H.G. Wells and Lord Beaverbrook, this roman à clef gives a glimpse of the author's own struggle to find a satisfying relationship.Dame Rebecca West, DBE (1892 1983) was an author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific author in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. She met H.G. Wells in 1913, after her provocatively damning review of his novel Marriage prompted him to invite her to lunch. They fell in love, though Wells was married at the time, and their affair lasted ten years producing a son. In 1947 Time magazine called West, indisputably the world's number one woman writer' and in 1954 Kenneth Tynan described her as, the best journalist alive'. She was made CBE in 1949, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to British letters. Stated "First American Edition"at the bottom of the copyright page.…