Description
A first edition, first printing of The Heir by Vita Sackville-West, published by Heinemann, London in 1922. A very good book, boards bound in publisher’s original tan cloth with gilt titling to the front board and spine, debossed Heinemann logo to rear board, binding slightly half-cocked and loose, fading to the spine, pushing to spine tips, damp-staining to the cloth boards, toning to the text block and ghosting to the front and rear end-papers.
The Heir by Vita Sackville West is a short, ironic novel examining inheritance, class and emotional restraint within the English aristocracy. Centred on a boy raised to inherit an ancient estate, the book exposes how tradition shapes character and suppresses desire. Sackville-West writes with cool precision, revealing the quiet cruelties of duty, gender expectation and property. The novel reflects her lifelong preoccupation with lineage, loss and the personal cost of preserving history through elegant, restrained modernist prose.
Excessively scarce in the first edition.
