CARMINA AMICO. OPUS QUINTUM.

JAMES Edward ( Officina Bodoni)

Published by Privately Printed,, Verona,, 1932

About this Item

First Edition. Hardback. 8vo, 26 by 17 cms, 72p, on the rectos only. Printed at the Hand-Press at Verona, Stamperia Valdonega in July 1932. Twenty-eight sonnets in the original English, with vignette of a fist in red on the title-page. Set in Poliphilus roman and Blado italic. One of 100 copies, this being one of 50 bound in half vellum, gilt and gold top, red paste paper sides with matching chemise (spine edges of this with very slight restoration). Bookplate of Geoffrey Farmer, offsetting to front endpapers. A very good indeed copy. Edward James was one of the most literary-artistic, though by no means unathletic Etonian vaguely homosexual figures that made their way to Oxford in the 1920s. His mother. Mrs Willie James, was Edward VII's daughter, said to have been begotten in in the heather near Balmoral, c.1870. At Eton, James had befriended Harold Acton. At Oxford he was responsible for the publication of Betjeman's first volume: Mount Zion. James married Tilly Losch - and then there was a divorce, thereafter began his friendship with Dali and involvement with the surrealist movement. The book's Uranian content is discussed in d'Arch Smith's Love in Earnest (at 161) Mardersteig 39. Seller Inventory # C72026

Bibliographic Details

Title: CARMINA AMICO. OPUS QUINTUM.

Publisher: Privately Printed,, Verona,

Publication Date: 1932

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition