THE MAIDS' COMEDY - RARE FIRST EDITION IN DUSTWRAPPER

The very scarce first edition of this important early South African, anonymously published, novel by Beatrice Hastings. 1911. Steven Swift. 8vo. Bound in quarter vellum and blue paper boards. There is light wear to the corner edges, mild offsetting to the endpapers and an ownership rubber stamp on the front pastedown. Internally the book is very clean. Front and lower edges uncut and the 16page advertisement section at the rear is partially unopened. In the rare about complete printed green dustwrapper which has moderate wear with some internal archival tape repairs and some insect scarring, full thickness in a couple of small spots. The rear panel has become detached from the spine panel but presents well in a Brodart protector. A very good copy in a good dustwrapper.  

Beatice Hastings was the pseudonym (one of many that she used) of Emily Alice Haigh, who was born of South African parents in London in 1879 and brought up in Port Elizabeth before she moved to London and Europe where she finally committed suicide (suffering from cancer) in 1943. She is a little known and much underrated figure in South Africa, which might hopefully be corrected by an extensive (729 page) biography of her by Stephen Gray published in 2012. Much of her writings appeared in "The New Age", with whose editor, A.R. Orage, she had a long standing relationship. She befriended many important literary figures of the time including Ezra Pound and Katherine Mansfield and is said to have been instrumental in introducing Mansfield to the public and very possibly had a relationship with her as she was reputed to be bisexual. She had a tempestuous romantic relationship with Amadeo Modigliani who used her as model for many of his iconic female studies which hang in many of the world's great art galleries. She published several volumes in her lifetime, all of which seldom appear on the market."The Maid's Comedy" was originally serialised in The New Age. It was published in book form by Stephen Swift (in London in 1911), who also published Katherine Mansfield's equally scarce and very expensive first book "In a German Pension" in the same year. It was published anonymously and this would in part account for it's apparent obscurity and scarcity. Brown University's Modernist Journal's Project states " Her works are difficult to find outside the pages of the magazine (The New Age)". It is a novel, set is South Africa, and according to Stephen Gray "much of the geographical material of The Maid's Comedy derives from her mother's account of her youthful life in the Eastern Cape ......". It owes much in influence to Thomas Mallory and Don Quixote.  

I can only find one copy of this book on offer online at the present and it is lacking the dustwrapper.

A fine copy of the Stephen Gray biography can be supplied gratis with this item, but would add significantly to the shipping costs overseas.