The Portreeve

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1906. Cloth. Very Good Indeed. 8" by 5.5". None. An author's presentation copy of his novel, in which he has written a length inscription lamenting and criticising the work. Like many of Phillpotts' works, this novel was set in Devon.Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960) was an extremely prolific English author and poet, who produced many works, novels in particular, during his lifetime. He was a friend of Agatha Christie, who admired his work and often visited him, and his work was also enjoyed by Jose Luis Borges. Many of his works were set in or revolved around Dartmoor; his play 'The Farmer's Wife' later became a 1928 silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He allegedly had an incestuous relationship with his daughter, whom he disowned when she married at the age of fifty-five. The inscription by the author reads: 'This book is a failure. The action moves stiffly and probability is something to greatly strained in the course of the narrative. There are, however, respectable things in it. The last three paragraphs of Chapter X, Book II seems good to me - also the description of natural objects and their wider meaning in the chapter called 'Your Pa'. The [] book, however, is not fine enough to save it. It must swiftly perish. Eden Phillpotts, 1st May 1906'.A tender and self-critical, one of a kind copy. In the publisher's original full cloth binding. Externally very smart, slight bumping to the head of the spine and extremities. Previous bookseller's pencil inscriptions to the front pastedown and endpaper; author's inscription to the front blank. Internally firmly bound, pages are bright and clean. Very Good Indeed