First edition. Original pink paper covered boards, lettered gilt. Erased inscription by Powell to the front endpaper. Loosely laid in is a proof of Powell's illustration and a notice of the founding of the Society. Six plates featuring reproductions by William Acton, Neville Lytton and others. One full page illustration after a pen and ink drawing by Anthony Powell. Good only, with portions or loss to the paper-covered spine and heavy wear to the spine ends.

Anthony Powell's own copy of his first appearance in print.
The Eton Candle was the magazine produced by the Eton Society of Arts, of which Powell was a founding member. The ambitions for the society founded by young aesthetes is garnered from the leaflet enclosed in the volume, which promises discussions of "Post-Impressionism, The Decorations of Rooms. Colour, as applied to Decoration. Oriental Art. Spanish Painting." Of this Powell later commented in his memoirs "they all sound fairly ambitious. I do not remember anything whatever about them, except that Byron, speaking on the Decoration of Rooms, once advocated a black ceiling, grey walls, white carpet."
The magazine published a mixture of works, written and visual, by both current students and notable alumni. The latter group included Aldous Huxley, Osbert Sitwell and Algernon Swinburne, while the former is very much led by Powell, with contributions also by Brian Howard and Harold Acton. It was Howard who titled Powell's contribution "Colonel Caesar Cannonbrains Of The Black Hussars".
Although "Volume 1" is boldly stated on the pink covers, it was the only volume produced. Examples of the Candle are now frightfully uncommon, and almost always in poor condition. The Hobson copy, which sold at his sale in 2015 and is the only recorded copy at auction, lacked its spine.

PROVENANCE: Anthony Powell (posthumous bookplate to front pastedown).

Stock ID: 39353