Description

“ONLY CONNECT?”: FIRST EDITION OF HOWARDS END, EXCEPTIONALLY RARE PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY FORSTER BEFORE PUBLICATION

FORSTER, E.M. Howards End. London: Edward Arnold, 1910. Octavo, original burgundy cloth gilt. Housed in a custom full leather clamshell box.

First edition, first issue, presentation copy, of Forster’s fourth novel, one of only 2500 copies printed, a prepublication copy inscribed, “Mr. Dakyns, from E.M.F. 10/10/10.” The book was officially published on October 18, 1910. Inscribed copies are exceptionally rare; while a handful of signed copies have been seen, we know of no other inscribed copy that has appeared.

Looking back over his career, Forster called Howards End his “best novel and approaching a good novel.” One of the many critics praising the work on publication, R.A. Scott-James wrote, “‘Only connect?’ is Mr. Forster’s motto. It is because he has taken this motto not only for his book but for his method of work that he has achieved the most significant novel of the year” (Furbank, 190, 188). First issue, with eight pages of publisher’s advertisements at rear; the publisher’s advertisements are found with a variety of page counts, no priority determined. Without scarce original dust jacket. Kirkpatrick A4a. Henry Graham Dakyns, a Greek translator noted for his renderings of Xenophon, became the tutor to Lord Tennyson’s sons after graduating from Cambridge. He left the Tennyson family when he was appointed Assistant Master of Classics at Clifton College, Bristol. Near the end of his life, Dakyns befriended the young Forster, who apparently visited him and his family on occasion; Dakyns died the year after the publication of Howards End. Along with Arthur and Henry Sidgwick and John Addington Symonds, Dakyns was one of a circle of friends debating the subject of  “same-sex feeling.” Dakyns’ papers are housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Scattered foxing to interior; light rubbing to extremities of bright cloth. A near-fine copy with exceptional provenance; signed copies of Howards End are extremely rare, and no inscribed copy has been seen at auction in over 35 years.