INSCRIBED TO 'DAVEY'
The Pursuit of Love
Hamish Hamilton, 1945.
First edition. Original blue cloth titled in gilt, in pictorial dustwrapper by Furze. Author's presentation copy, inscribed on the front end paper to Edward Sackville-West, the model for Davey Warbeck, one of the principal characters in the novel, "To Davey with love from Nancy 12 Dec 1945 / "Not funny, merely inappropriate" ES-W".Sackville-West's bookplate to the front pastedown. A very good copy, with a little wear to the spine ends and a mark to the rear panel in a (supplied) very good dustwrapper indeed, which is price clipped with minor wear to the spine ends, but generally well preserved.
Edward Sackville-West, later 5th Baron Sackville, counted Mitford and Evelyn Waugh among his close social circle. "I am glad you love him, so do I", she wrote to Waugh.
Mitford's affection for Sackville-West is palpable in the portrait of Davey, an irresistible character who is utterly at home with the Radletts, who are a thinly veiled pastiche of Mitford's own family.
Many of Davey's characteristics: his hypochondria, sophistication, intellectualism, love of gossip, knowledge of France and innate goodness spiked with a realism on human nature are all taken from her friendshhip with Sackville-West.
The Pursuit of Love is the first part of Mitford's popular trilogy about family life between the wars. Although she had been a published novelist since 1931, this is the book that established Mitford as a literary force.
Inscriptions in any of Mitford's significant works are seldom encountered in commerce.
Stock ID: 38933
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