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Evelyn Waugh – They Were Still Dancing – First US Edition 1931 – SIGNED Presentation Copy
£2,950.00
A first edition, first printing published by Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, New York, USA. Waugh’s second travel book. Originally published in the same year in the UK as ‘Remote People’, this is an account of his Ethiopian travels to witness the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie. ‘They were still dancing’ was Waugh’s preferred title and it forms the first four words of the book. Presentation copy from Evelyn Waugh: ‘For dear Lou, with warmest love from Evelyn’. This first issue is of legendary scarcity. Waugh was in disagreement with the publishers, Cape and Smith after they failed to pay him his agreed advance of $600. Waugh then ended his relationship with the publisher and took the title to Farrer and Rinehart who published it in 1932 but not before an initial print run by Cape and Smith had taken place in 1931. Research indicates that it is estimated that fewer than 150 copies of the 1931 edition are in existence and even less in dustwrapper.
We can find no other record of an inscribed copy of this issue. Cloth slightly dusty and rubbed to the head and tail of the spine but binding nice and tight. Purple top edge a little faded. Pages generally nice and clean with only very light and very occasional minor foxing. A very good copy in good, nicked, chipped and rubbed correct first-issue dustwrapper which has loss to the head and tail of the spine, evidence of old tape repairs to the reverse along with modern repairs using archive tape but is nevertheless largely complete. A probably unique and, given the circumstances, an extraordinary survival which is significantly scarcer than the UK edition.
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- Description
Description
A first US edition, first printing of They Were Still Dancing by Evelyn Waugh, published by Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith in 1931, New York, USA. Waugh’s second travel book. Originally published in the same year in the UK as ‘Remote People’, this is an account of his Ethiopian travels to witness the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie. ‘They were still dancing’ was Waugh’s preferred title and it forms the first four words of the book. Presentation copy from Evelyn Waugh: ‘For dear Lou, with warmest love from Evelyn’. This first issue is of legendary scarcity. Waugh was in disagreement with the publishers, Cape and Smith after they failed to pay him his agreed advance of $600. Waugh then ended his relationship with the publisher and took the title to Farrer and Rinehart who published it in 1932 but not before an initial print run by Cape and Smith had taken place in 1931. Research indicates that it is estimated that fewer than 150 copies of the 1931 edition are in existence and even less in dustwrapper.
We can find no other record of an inscribed copy of this issue. Cloth slightly dusty and rubbed to the head and tail of the spine but binding nice and tight. Purple top edge a little faded. Pages generally nice and clean with only very light and very occasional minor foxing. A very good copy in good, nicked, chipped and rubbed correct first-issue dustwrapper which has loss to the head and tail of the spine, evidence of old tape repairs to the reverse along with modern repairs using archive tape but is nevertheless largely complete. A probably unique and, given the circumstances, an extraordinary survival which is significantly scarcer than the UK edition.
