Kew Gardens
Hogarth Press, 1919.
Second edition. Original 'wallpaper' wrappers, hand painted in blue, brown and orange to imitate those from Roger Fry's Omega Workshops,. Illustrated with two woodcuts by Vanessa Bell. Floral endpapers. A very good copy indeed, edges creased with small closed tears and a wear to the spine, but very little loss and entirely unrepaired.
The author's third publication, this edition published a month after the first, in an edition of 500 copies, printed for the Hogarth Press by Richard Madley of Whitfield Street after demand for the book became too great for the Woolf's hand press.
"...we came back from Ashenham to find the hall table stacked, littered with orders for Kew Gardens. They strewed the sofa and we opened them intermittently through dinner... we were both excited." - from Virginia Woolf's original diary entry, reproduced in A Writer's Diary (1953).
At the time The Hogarth Press was little more than a private hobby of the Woolfs, but such demand, sparked by a glowing review in the TLS, marked a watershed in the fortunes of the press forcing them towards setting it up as a going concern.
"But here is "Kew Gardens" - a work of art, made, "created" as we say, finished, four square; a thing of original and therefore strange beauty, with its own "atmosphere", its own vital force... the more one gloats over "Kew Gardens" the more beauty shines out of it; and the fitter to it seems this cover that is no other cover, and carries associations..." - Harold Child in the TLS
Kirkpatrick A3b; Woolmer 7
Stock ID: 46754
£4,500.00
