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First Impressions, a complete set, comprised of Left Hand, Right Hand: The Cruel Month, The Scarlet Tree, Great Morning, Laughter in the Next Room, and Noble Essences, or Courteous Revelations. Five octavo volumes (22cm); smooth scarlet buckram, blocked and titled in black and gilt on spines; pictorial endpapers; black topstains; dustjackets; xvi,272; viii,318,[2]; viii,323,[5]; viii,380,[4]; xii,323,[1]pp, each volume bearing a portrait frontispiece and 22 illustrations (and folding chart at the end of Vol.I). Volumes III and IV are pre-publication presentation copies, inscribed by Sitwell on the half-title page to his publisher, Daniel De Mendi Macmillan, and his wife Elizabeth "Betty" Warrin Macmillan. The inscription in Great Morning reads: "For Betty and Dan / with affection / from Osbert / April 16, 1948," with the Laughter in the Next Room inscription reading as follows: "For Dan and Betty / with gratitude from their friend, the author / Osbert." Volumes I-II and V are Fine, save for some trivial wrinkling at crown on Vol.V. Volumes III-IV are gently spine-sunned, with some very faint finger-soil to covers, else Near Fine. Dustjackets all unclipped except for The Scarlet Tree, gently spine-sunned and lightly edgeworn, with a few tiny nicks and tears at crowns and along the edges, with some corresponding wrinkling to crown on Vol.V; Very Good+. A uniformly attractive set of Sitwell's highly-regarded memoirs, spanning his childhood and early life through the late Edwardian decade, on to his adult life in English society before and after two World Wars. The fifth volume is dedicated to a detailed study of various authors, artists, and musicians who Sitwell considered either friends or influences, including Ronald Firbank, Wilfred Owen, Ada Leverson, W.H. Davies, Arnold Bennett, and Gabriele D'Annunzio. E.M. Forster reviewed the first volume quite favorably for the BBC's Eastern Service, and George Orwell, while writing for The Adelphi, cited the existing volumes as being "among the best autobiographies of our time" (July-September, 1948). The two inscribed volumes are presentation copies of the highest caliber: Daniel De Mendi Macmillan (1886-1965), son of George Augustin Macmillan, was Sitwell's friend and publisher, who served as Chairman of the publishing company from 1936-1965. FIFOOT OA34b; OA38b; OA40b; OA42b; OA48a.
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