ANONYMOUS [Edwin Rumball-Petre] The Book Without a Name. Being the Eighteenth Century Journal of an Unmarried English Lady to her Natural Son. London: Faber and Gwyer. 1929. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s green cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking illustrated dust jacket designed unmistakably by Rex Whistler. A very good copy. The cloth boards a trifle discoloured, gently bumped at spine tips. The binding tight and square, the textblock edges gently spotted, with very mild sporadic foxing throughout. The dust jacket price-clipped, large chip to rear panel upper, tape repairs to verso with closed tear around spine head. Other small nicks and chips, but a pleasing copy overall.
A curious publication by Edwin Rumball-Petre, who was for a long time the leading dealer of rare Bibles, running his Bibles of Yore bookshop in New York up until the late 30s while serving as an ordained minister and, purportedly, acting consultant to biblical minutiae by theological seminaries and the like. His apparent business practices—of dropshipping bibles to American millionaires and sourcing them through his links to the British book trade—hints at what is at play here; the book is a supposedly unpublished journal of a ‘clear-sighted, intelligent and ardent [woman] possessed with a love of nature and a passion for freedom rare in her day’. The manuscript was housed in his Rumball-Petre’s grandfather’s library, says the author, though one doubts it. Nevertheless, it is a readable account. Scarce in the wonderful Whistler dust jacket.
ANONYMOUS [Edwin Rumball-Petre] The Book Without a Name. Being the Eighteenth Century Journal of an Unmarried English Lady to her Natural Son. London: Faber and Gwyer. 1929. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s green cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking illustrated dust jacket designed unmistakably by Rex Whistler. A very good copy. The cloth boards a trifle discoloured, gently bumped at spine tips. The binding tight and square, the textblock edges gently spotted, with very mild sporadic foxing throughout. The dust jacket price-clipped, large chip to rear panel upper, tape repairs to verso with closed tear around spine head. Other small nicks and chips, but a pleasing copy overall.
A curious publication by Edwin Rumball-Petre, who was for a long time the leading dealer of rare Bibles, running his Bibles of Yore bookshop in New York up until the late 30s while serving as an ordained minister and, purportedly, acting consultant to biblical minutiae by theological seminaries and the like. His apparent business practices—of dropshipping bibles to American millionaires and sourcing them through his links to the British book trade—hints at what is at play here; the book is a supposedly unpublished journal of a ‘clear-sighted, intelligent and ardent [woman] possessed with a love of nature and a passion for freedom rare in her day’. The manuscript was housed in his Rumball-Petre’s grandfather’s library, says the author, though one doubts it. Nevertheless, it is a readable account. Scarce in the wonderful Whistler dust jacket.
