Description

‘THIS MEANS HEATED DISCUSSIONS IN THE LOUNGE OF WARWICK CASTLE”: FIRST EDITION OF NATIONAL VELVET, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY ENID BAGNOLD IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION

BAGNOLD, Enid. National Velvet. London: William Heinemann, (1935). Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of  “one of the jolliest, raciest, books I have read” (Raymond Mortimer), presentation copy, inscribed in the year of publication, “To Sir Robert Webber from the Author Enid Bagnold (this means heated discussions in the lounge of the Warwick Castle! —) London, June:1935.”

National Velvet was a “sensationally successful story by the British novelist and playwright Enid Bagnold? The book was filmed in 1944 with Elizabeth Taylor as Velvet, and contributed to the establishment of the ‘pony story’ as a popular genre of fiction for girls” (Carpenter, 370). As predicted, “a new cult [was] about to arise, of people whose hearts beat in rhythm with the pages of a novel called National Velvet” (William Soskin). Bagnold’s now-classic novel was inspired by her daughter Laurian Jones’ love of horses; Jones, 14 years old when the novel was published, provided the book’s vignette illustrations. Welshman Robert John Webber started his professional career as a railway office worker, and became, at age 24, private secretary to Lord Riddell in London. He soon returned to Wales to join the Western Mail newspaper, eventually rising to be its managing director. Also a justice of the peace and a chairman of the Cardiff Bench of Magistrates, Webber was knighted in 1934.

Interior fine; raer inner hinge expertly reinforced, light rubbing to extremities of original cloth with light wear to spine head. Light wear to extremities of bright dust jacket with unobtrusive tape reinforcement to top and bottom edges. A near-fine copy, quite rare inscribed.