Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - October - 2006 Issue
Literature, Poetry, Art and Photography from James S. Jaffe Rare Books
First Edition of D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow.
Cyril Connolly is not a particularly well-known writer, which would probably not surprise him were he alive today. Connolly was a noted literary critic and editor, of great promise as a writer, who never was able to produce the great novel. His autobiographical Enemies of Promise, published in 1938, attempted to explain this mystery. Item 18 is a copy of this work inscribed to his good friend and traveling companion Humphrey Hare. Is that not one of the greatest names for a cartoon character you ever heard? Humphrey Hare. It sounds like something from Beatrix Potter, Dr. Seuss, or even Looney Tunes. Hare was a writer too, but is more noted as a translator of French works to English. $1,500.
Item 64 is Words For The Wind, a 1957 first edition of a book which would later win the National Book Award for Poetry in 1959 for Theodore Roethke. This is a presentation copy for Roger Stenhouse, one of the founders of his publishing firm. Pens author Roethke, "For Roger Stenhouse, the piston rod and grind wheel of Secker and Farthead." For the record, the publisher's name was Secker and Warburg. Perhaps this was an editorial comment about one of the firm's partners, or the firm itself? $3,500.
Item 40 is a 1915 first edition of D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow. Many copies of this edition were seized and destroyed by the British police on the grounds of obscenity. This one, with the rare dust jacket, survived. $65,000.
James S. Jaffe Rare Books may be reached at 212-988-8042, or by email at jamesjaffe@earthlink.net.
