ARMSTRONG, Martin. The Stepson. London: Jonathan Cape. 1927. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s green cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by a young Edward Ardizzone before he adopted his more recognisable style. A very good copy. The cloth clean, gently bumped at spine tips and corners, the binding tight and square. The contents fine but for some offsetting to endpapers, a few faint spots to edges, and with slight crease to front endpaper, but without stamps or inscriptions. The dust jacket unclipped (7s 6d net), the spine a trifle toned, some light nicks and closed tears to corners and spine tips, gently rubbed along the joints. A pleasing copy.
A modern Euripidean tale of a young woman who marries an older man and begins a relationship with the man’s son—her stepson—to dramatic end. Armstrong’s fourth novel, and another dealing with the psychological challenges of relationships, and like both his prose and his poetry, showing a fascination with the daily workings of rural life, the farm here practically as character. Of special interest is the dust jacket—its designer, Edward Ardizzone, producing one of just a handful of highly stylised designs before adopting a style inimitably his own. These earlier designs—signed EJIA as per his initials, Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone—often utilised a sort of through-the-keyhole background-to-foreground composition, this particular design with its simplistic use of two colours over black and white certainly reminiscent of Clifford Webb’s dust jackets.
ARMSTRONG, Martin. The Stepson. London: Jonathan Cape. 1927. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s green cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dust jacket designed by a young Edward Ardizzone before he adopted his more recognisable style. A very good copy. The cloth clean, gently bumped at spine tips and corners, the binding tight and square. The contents fine but for some offsetting to endpapers, a few faint spots to edges, and with slight crease to front endpaper, but without stamps or inscriptions. The dust jacket unclipped (7s 6d net), the spine a trifle toned, some light nicks and closed tears to corners and spine tips, gently rubbed along the joints. A pleasing copy.
A modern Euripidean tale of a young woman who marries an older man and begins a relationship with the man’s son—her stepson—to dramatic end. Armstrong’s fourth novel, and another dealing with the psychological challenges of relationships, and like both his prose and his poetry, showing a fascination with the daily workings of rural life, the farm here practically as character. Of special interest is the dust jacket—its designer, Edward Ardizzone, producing one of just a handful of highly stylised designs before adopting a style inimitably his own. These earlier designs—signed EJIA as per his initials, Edward Jeffrey Irving Ardizzone—often utilised a sort of through-the-keyhole background-to-foreground composition, this particular design with its simplistic use of two colours over black and white certainly reminiscent of Clifford Webb’s dust jackets.
