INSCRIBED BY C.S. LEWIS
The Magician's Nephew
Macmillan, 1955.
First US edition. Original sage green cloth lettered in black on the spine in supplied dustwrapper. Author's presentation copy, inscribed on the front endpaper, "Miss Mary Telfer with gratitude from C.S.Lewis April 1957". Illustrated throughout in line by Baynes. A good copy, the spine ends and corners somewhat worn and the spine browned. Large juvenile ownership inscription and address on the front endpaper, beneath Lewis' inscription, of Rosemary Vair-Turnbull, Telfer's niece to whom she gave the book. In a very good (supplied) dustwrapper, with some wear to the corners and spine ends.
Mary Telfer was a nurse at Napsbury Hospital. It is possible that she played some part in helping Lewis or his wife after she was discharged from the Wingfield Morris Hospital in Headington in April 1957. A letter to Arthur Greeves on 5 April mentions a resident nurse and another a week or so later states "We have two nurses". Lewis gave inscribed copies of this book and The Last Battle to Telfer, who gave them to her two nieces for their sixth birthday in October 1957. They have remained in the same family ever since.
Inscribed copies of the Narnia books are extremely rare and seldom seen in commerce. Lewis tended to only inscribe them for children, usually the children of academic contemporaries of his. As recipients of the original books grew out of childhood, Lewis sought not to patronise them by giving them a book they might consider childish. As a consequence, copies of the later books seem particularly uncommon in an inscribed state.
Stock ID: 44215
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