BEAU BRUMMELL
Signed limited edition, one of 550 numbered copies signed by Woolf in her characteristic purple ink – this copy once part of Pearl S. Buck's library, with her collection bookplate.
Very good plus in very good slipcase.
Price: $3,200.00
BEAU BRUMMELL
"his ghost walks among us still."
Beau Brummell was a charismatic figure who dominated the late Georgian period, described by Ian Kelly as "the most famous man in London [...] at the center of what amounted to a personality cult." Among other things, he was a fashion pioneer in popularizing what is considered standard for men today, the suit (with collar, tie, and trousers). Kelly and others have made the argument that Brummell was "history's foremost social climber [...] the first 'celebrity' (a term he knew and used in its current sense) to set the now familiar celebrity pattern of a dramatic fall from grace." Woolf's essay chronicles the story of his rise and fall here in a tone mimicking her final quote of Byron: with "a mingled emotion of respect and jealousy." First published, as much of Woolf's criticism, in a magazine (THE NATION, September 1929), this is the first book publication of the essay, later appearing in "Four Figures" in Woolf's COMMON READER: Second Series (1932).
This copy, owned by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning feminist author Pearl S. Buck, speaks to her and Woolf's overlapping views and literary interests. In her 1941 collection of essays, Buck noted that "the truth has never been told about women in history: that everywhere man has gone woman has gone too, and what he has done she has done also. Women are ignorant of their own past and ignorant of their own importance in that past," echoing Woolf's lamentation of the silencing of women's voices in A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN.
Read more: Kelly, Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style; Pearl S. Buck, "The American Woman," Of Men and Women.
The Object
New York: Rimington & Hooper, 1930. 12.25'' x 9''. Original rust cloth spine, brown paper boards, pink pictorial paper label on front board with peacock design, gilt-lettered spine. Tog edge gilt. Illustrated by W.A. Dwiggins with two full-page plates printed in pink and blue. [6], 8, [6] pages. Signed by Woolf in purple ink on verso of half title. Colophon at rear with manuscript number 12. Printed label to rear pastedown signed by Jean Walsh Lippincott, "This book is from the library of my mother, Pearl S. Buck." In original green slipcase with pictorial paper onlay to front. Slipcase with edge rubbing and wear, some foxing; lower joint starting. A hint of foxing along margins of boards, with a bit of soil. Textblock with a hint of foxing to margins. Tight.
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