Description

RARE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF IT’S A BATTLEFIELD,
INSCRIBED IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION BY GRAHAM GREENE,
THE COPY OF INFLUENTIAL SOCIALITE LADY OTTOLINE MORELL,
THE SOURCE FOR THE CHARACTER OF CAROLINE BURY

GREENE, Graham. It’s a Battlefield. London: William Heinemann, 1934. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in custom clamshell box.

First edition, inscribed in the year of publication “With my very best wishes Graham Greene. Feb. 1934”—an exceptional presentation/association copy from the library of Ottoline Morrell, Greene’s source for the novel’s kind socialite Caroline Bury, a figure central “to the theme of the novel” (Sherry I:465), with Lady Ottoline’s marginalia. Housed in a custom clamshell box.This rare presentation/association copy of one of Graham Greene’s earliest novels, It’s a Battlefield, comes from the library of his friend Lady Ottoline Morrell, whose open support for his earlier novel The Man Within (1929) led Greene to acknowledge her as the source herein for “‘the background of Lady Caroline [Bury].” A popular hostess who was “renowned for her patronage of writers, artists, scholars and poets? Lady Ottoline suddenly appeared in Greene’s life in October 1930.” He often attended her “regular Thursday parties at number 10 Gower Street (the home of Lady Caroline Bury in It’s a Battlefield)? Greene’s portrait of her reflects, in Caroline Bury, the best characteristics as well as the eccentricities of Ottoline.” She becomes “the source of important scenes and plot connections, and she contributes to the theme of the novel” as expressed in a scene between Bury and the Assistant Commissioner, who observes that “Everybody’s too busy fighting his own little battle to think of the next man. Except you Caroline.’ And he thinks, ‘it’s lucky she has got Faith” (Sherry I:464-66). Miller 11. From the library of Lady Ottoline Morrell, with her lightly penciled marginalia on the rear pastedown and along passages referring to Caroline Bury.

Text generally fresh, light edge-wear, light spotting to near-fine cloth; some chipping with expert restoration to extremely good dust jacket. An exceptional association copy in extremely good condition.