Pamela Glenconner Boutet De Monvel (2 results)

Condition: Very Good. 8vo. pp 30. One illustration at rear. Paper covered blue boards, linen spine with attractive block printed illustration on the cover. Very good indeed. ( very slight offsetting to eps, slight foxing to fore edges.) Printed on heavy hand made style paper. Unopened at the top, uncut at the edges. First Edition. Hardback. No Dustjacket. …

First edition, first impression, presentation copy from the author, inscribed on the front free endpaper "Evelyn Wolfe Murray from Pamela, 1915". The recipient was the wife of Brigadier General Arthur Alexander Wolfe-Murray, best friend of the author's first husband. The present work is an English version of Boutet de Monvel's celebrated illustrated children's history of Joan of Arc, first published in 1896. At the turn of the 20th century, Joan of Arc featured prominently in popular culture and literature, as part of a major movement that eventually lead to her official canonization in 1920. This beautifully printed book, published only five years prior and issued in the second year of the war, is a fascinating contribution to that movement, presenting France's patron saint as an inspirational rallying figure who "restored courage to those who had lost heart" (preface). A member of the exclusive poetical and literary circle "The Souls", Pamela Tennant (born Wyndham, 1871-1928) was an accomplished writer, chiefly remembered for her widely read memoirs of Edward Tennant, her son and war poet who died at the Battle of the Somme. In 1895, she married Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner. Pamela was a friend of Oscar Wilde and a noted art patron, who hosted three lectures by Ezra Pound in her private gallery in 1912. The Story of Joan of Arc is an example of elegant book design and printing by the prestigious Chiswick Press; the lack of any indication concerning a publisher in the imprint suggests that it was self-published by the translator. This is the only inscribed copy we have traced in commerce. Norman Colbeck Collection I, p. 318. Octavo. Wood-engraved tailpiece. Original cloth-backed blue paper boards, lettering and wood engraved vignette illustrating two doves in black to front cover, edges untrimmed. Spine lightly toned, trivial shelfwear to extremities, two corner lightly bumped, faint offsetting to endpapers, contents clean. A fresh example, in very good conditions.…