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First impression of the first British Commonwealth edition. With a photographic frontispiece of Anaïs Nin in the mid 1930s to the fore and a four-page section of black and white photographs after page 210. With a preface by Rupert Pole and biographical notes to the rear by Gunther Stuhlmann. ***Near fine in red cloth-covered boards with gilt titles to the spine. The boards are clean and unmarked. Small crease to the top edge of the rear board near the spine. Corners sharp. Page block edges largely clean - just a couple of foxing marks. No reading lean. Spine tight. Internally also near fine with no inscriptions. Pages clean. Very minimal light foxing to the front and rear endpapers. No creases or tears. ***In a near fine black and white photo-illustrated dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, showing the original publisher's printed price of £25. The dustwrapper is complete, with no creases, chips or tears. Red titles and text to the dustwrapper bright with no fading. ***xii prelims plus note and 434 text pages including biographical notes and index to rear. 224mm x 144mm. ***'Fire is the third part of Anaïs Nin's unexpurgated diaries, the 'Journal of Love', and covers the years 1934 to 1937. It begins with Nin's sea voyage from France to 'the Babylonian city' of New York, where she relishes 'the cellophane symphony' of Broadway and the 'dusky lights' of Harlem, and where she continues her relationships with Henry Miller and the analyst Dr Otto Rank, playing them off against her husband Hugo Guiler. ***Dismembered by love', Nin commits her innermost thoughts to her diary: 'I live in a sort of furnace of affections, loves, desires, inventions, creations, activities, and reveries --- I only believe in fire --- Being myself on fire I set others on fire.' Though she loves the buoyancy of New York and 'the whirlwind of a new race', she decides to return with Henry Miller to the 'sullenness of Louveciennes', her home outside Paris. There she becomes obsessed with a new lover, the Peruvian artist and revolutionary Gonzalo More, who 'leads me into dark ways, adds perfume, torture, denial, exaltation', and who rescues her from what she describes as an ordinary life. ***The diaries reveal every element in their passionate affair, which takes place just as Nin's literary reputation is boosted by the publication of her prose poem "House of Incest". As she writes at the hight of her affair, 'On love and worship I can build a million worlds, and create infinitely.' (Quote taken from the front flap of the dustwrapper) ***First impression of the first British Commonwealth edition, in its original dustwrapper, in near fine condition. Uncommon. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.
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