BATES, Herbert Ernest. The Two Sisters. With a foreword by Edward Garnett. London: Jonathan Cape. 1926. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s burgundy cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the sumptuous dust jacket designed by ‘Cola’. This copy inscribed by the author to J. Dixon at the half-title, the recipient very possibly James Dixon-Scott, the acclaimed British photographer who provided the shots for Bates’ essay ‘Rutland: The Toy County’ published in the June 1941 issue of Country Life (no. 2316, pp. 494-496). A fine copy. The cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, the contents fine with light offsetting to endpapers and a few pencil bookseller references. The dust jacket unclipped (7s 6d net) and complete, a trifle bumped around spine head and tail, and at corners, a few mild marks to front panel, but all quite trivial, and a superior copy overall.
The first novel by the Midlands novelist and short story writer, written when aged just 19 while working as a factory clerk—so enthused was he in writing it, he was sacked when management discovered him working on it while clocked in. It follows the lives and minds of two sisters living with their tyrannical father in their Midlands farmhouse. Seemingly pre-destined to have to choose a similar life or a world away, trouble comes when both vie for the attention of the new stranger in the village. Edward Garnett played a key role in getting it published, it having been rejected numerous times prior to his reading it. We can find little on the illustrator—for many years (clumsily) believing it to be by P. Youngman Carter. Uncommon in such smart condition, especially so inscribed.
BATES, Herbert Ernest. The Two Sisters. With a foreword by Edward Garnett. London: Jonathan Cape. 1926. 8vo. First edition, first printing. Publisher’s burgundy cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the sumptuous dust jacket designed by ‘Cola’. This copy inscribed by the author to J. Dixon at the half-title, the recipient very possibly James Dixon-Scott, the acclaimed British photographer who provided the shots for Bates’ essay ‘Rutland: The Toy County’ published in the June 1941 issue of Country Life (no. 2316, pp. 494-496). A fine copy. The cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, the contents fine with light offsetting to endpapers and a few pencil bookseller references. The dust jacket unclipped (7s 6d net) and complete, a trifle bumped around spine head and tail, and at corners, a few mild marks to front panel, but all quite trivial, and a superior copy overall.
The first novel by the Midlands novelist and short story writer, written when aged just 19 while working as a factory clerk—so enthused was he in writing it, he was sacked when management discovered him working on it while clocked in. It follows the lives and minds of two sisters living with their tyrannical father in their Midlands farmhouse. Seemingly pre-destined to have to choose a similar life or a world away, trouble comes when both vie for the attention of the new stranger in the village. Edward Garnett played a key role in getting it published, it having been rejected numerous times prior to his reading it. We can find little on the illustrator—for many years (clumsily) believing it to be by P. Youngman Carter. Uncommon in such smart condition, especially so inscribed.
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