Queer Connections

IN THE SUMMER HOUSE

By Jane Bowles

(1954)

Inscribed association copy of the first edition of Bowles's only play, presented to Lilla von Saher, Hungarian actress, writer of lesbian pulp, and famously beautiful cat-lover, who would accompany Bowles on a trip to Europe in 1956.

Very good plus in very good jacket.

Price: $1,800.00

IN THE SUMMER HOUSE

"Do you see the world dark behind your eyes?"

Bowles's summit and apex of mother-daughter comedy is an absurdist drama of languishing daughters and unsatisfiable mothers suspended between the abyss of derealization and the icebox full of fizzy water. Saher, to whom this book is inscribed, was herself an author — of an anonymously published lesbian pulp novel ADAM AND TWO EVES — as well as a good friend of Tennessee Williams, who was also on the 1956 European trip. A lovely queer literary association.

Read more: Alexander, The Life and Times of Franz Alexander; Miller (ed.), In Touch: The Letters of Paul Bowles.

The Object

First printing (stated). New York: Random House, (1954). 7.75'' x 5.25''. Original beige cloth stamped in blue and gilt with black-and-white photographic paste-on. In original unclipped ($2.75) blue and beige dust jacket. Illustrated with black and white photographs. 122 pages. Inscribed by Bowles to Lilla and her husband, Mark Riwkin, on front free endpaper: "For Lilla and Mark / With Love / Jane." Light edgewear. Slight soil and considerable toning to jacket spine, lighter toning elsewhere. Offsetting to endpapers. Tight.

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