UNDER A GLASS BELL AND OTHER STORIES.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1948. First edition. Gilt cloth. Rockwell Kent designed bookplate over an earlier ink name on endsheet, else fine in good, somewhat edgeworn dust jacket with chip at crown of spine.
First edition thus, including two stories for the first time in book form. Although UNDER A GLASS BELL is now considered one of Anaïs Nin’s finest collections of stories, it was initially deemed unpublishable. Refusing to give up on her vision, in 1944 Nin founded her own press and brought out the first edition, illustrated with striking black-and-white engravings by her husband, Hugh Guiler. Shortly thereafter, it caught the attention of literary critic Edmund Wilson, who reviewed the collection in the New Yorker: “The pieces in this collection belong to a peculiar genre sometimes cultivated by the late Virginia Woolf. They are half short stories, half dreams, and they mix a sometimes exquisite poetry with a homely realistic observation. They take place in a special world, a world of feminine perception and fancy…. " -- Edmund Wilson, "New Yorker," 1 April 1944. Near fine. / Good. Item #317
Price: $45.00