Search Results: Authors starting with L from Honey & Wax Booksellers

London: Euphorion Books, 1950. Privately printed first edition of English novelist Nancy Mitford's translation of Madame de Lafayette's seventeenth-century novel, a high spot of French literature, illustrated with portraits of the court of Henri II. The Princesse de Clèves, the tale of a faithful wife tempted by the fascinating Duc de Nemours, introduces a modern psychological realism into the highly stylized conventions of French court romance: "She could not suppress an uneasy happiness at the sight of him, but when he was not there the thought that her love had its origins in his physical presence filled her with anguish so that she almost hated him." This scarce edition was published by Euphorion Books, the private press of Nancy Mitford's sister Diana Mosley, and contains Mitford's acid preface, which was watered down considerably when the translation was reprinted by Penguin in 1962. A near-fine copy of a fragile book, scarce in jacket. Single volume, measuring 8.5 x 5.25 inches: [6], 172.… Read More

London and New York: Fourth Estate, 2004. First edition of this collection of critical essays by Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing, most dealing with the unpredictable aftershocks of reading: "I do not believe that one can be changed by a book (or by a person) unless there is already something present, latent or in embryo, ready to be changed." Lessing's subjects range from classic authors (Richardson, Stendhal, Austen, Tolstoy) to contemporaries (Anna Kavan, Nirad Chaudhuri, Christabel Bielenberg, Niccolò Tucci). A fine copy, signed by Lessing in the year of publication. Single volume, measuring 9 x 6 inches: viii, 376. Original pale grey paper boards lettered in gilt, pale blue endpapers, original unclipped photographic dust jacket. Signed and dated on the title page: "Doris Lessing / 19th October 04.".

New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1923. First American edition of Bolshevik writer Libedinsky's first novel, first published in Russian in 1922, an account of one week in a remote Siberian village torn apart by the Revolution. Facing famine, Communist leaders order the villagers into the forest to chop wood for fuel, creating an opening for a counterrevolutionary revolt. The violent aftermath is reflected through the eyes of a dozen characters, both Reds and Whites, and the unlucky villagers caught in the middle: "The Easter bell-ringing floated over the town, and the sound of it was interwoven with the tapping of the machine-gun. . . . She got up with difficulty." A Week was the first proletarian novel to find a wide readership outside Russia. Translator Arthur Ransome attributes the novel's success to its documentary quality: "Libedinsky aimed so simply . . . his was so clearly an attempt to see rather than an attempt to describe." A Week would be withdrawn from Soviet libraries after Libedinsky's expulsion… Read More