First trade edition. Original orange cloth lettered in gilt. Author's presentation copy to her close friend Ottoline Morrell, inscribed on the front endpaper, "To Ottoline from Virginia", with Morrell's pencilled monogram and address, dated Oct 11th 1928. Also copious (some 28) page and passage references in pencil in Morrell's hand to the rear endpaper with corresponding marginal marks in the text. A very good copy indeed with a little toning to the spine.

An exceptional association copy. Ottoline Morrell, who became the most prominent literary hostess of her generation, first met Woolf (Virginia Stephen at the time) in 1908 and formed an immediate impression, Woolf noting in a letter to Violet Dickinson that her meeting was like "sitting under a huge lily, absorbing pollen like a seduced bee".
After the war, Morrell's country house, Garsington Manor became a meeting point of bohemian writers and artists, particularly members of the Bloomsbury group. Woolf had spent time at Garsington during the war and remained a regular visitor, but as Woolf's standing as an author grew their relationship became more ambiguous. Morrell recalls in her memoirs,
"She seemed to feel certain of her own eminence. It is true, but it is rather crushing, for I feel she is very contemptuous of other people. When I stretched out a hand to feel another woman, I found only a very lovely, clear intellect."
An imaginative novel which traces the development of the main character who begins as an Elizabethan nobleman and, during the reign of Charles II, awakes from a deep sleep as a woman. The female heroine is based on Vita Sackville-West and many critics suggest that this novel is used by Woolf to demonstrate her passion for Sackville-West.

Kirkpatrick A11b

Stock ID: 35956