Isherwood at the Hogarth Press, Signed
Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties
Publication: London: Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1938. First Edition.
Notes: A signed first edition of this fictionalized memoir in an attractive example of the uncommon dust jacket.
In his introduction, Isherwood says of this book, "Read it as a novel." In a way, this is a British pre-war book like Jack Kerouac's On the Road, but with more tea and less driving. Instead of the Beats, Isherwood writes about the London bohemian writers of the 1920s—Stephen Spender, Edward Upward, and W. H. Auden—under thinly disguised pseudonyms. The main character, “Christopher Isherwood” labors away on books and works odd jobs to make ends meet after being asked to leave Cambridge University.
Isherwood was one of many important early 20th century writers to be published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf at their Hogarth Press. A year later they would publish his best-known novel, Goodbye to Berlin. The much more common American edition of this novel came out after the Second World War, in 1947.
[1–8] 9–312 pages; inserted halftone portrait of the author (1904–1986) in 1921 as the frontispiece.
PROVENANCE: [Joseph the] Provider, 7-78 [$]150; small pencil notation on the rear endpaper.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing, with no indication of later printings; bound in blue cloth stamped in black on the spine). A very good copy (endpapers a bit browned) in a very good dust jacket with very shallow chipping at the spine ends and light brown staining at the upper right corner of the front panel. This copy is signed by Isherwood on the front free endpaper. Copies signed and in dust jackets are uncommon.
Item No: #3110
Price: $1,500