DAVIS, Oswald Harcourt. Home Brewed. London: Dent. 1932. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s brown cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the excellent wraparound dust jacket that goes uncredited. A very good copy, the cloth clean and bright, the gilt lettering dulled but legible, the binding tight and square. The contents clean and fine but for some very mild foxing to edges and prelims. The dust jacket price-clipped, with loss to spine head and much smaller nicks and tiny chips to other corners and edges, some rubbing to all joints, and adhesive tape reinforcement to verso. A handsome copy nonetheless.
A rather unusual novel which uses at its core that most joyful of liquids—beer. The novel follows Hilary, raised of virtuous standing in a Midlands town who, in despair of his unrequited love for his cousin, becomes publican of a gritty outfit, engrossing himself in all its lowlife characters, later smitten with a prostitute while his broken marriage drifts asunder, then wangled into a manslaughter charge. Oswald Davis’ third published novel of four, most of which set among the working class people of Birmingham where he grew up. He wrote two monographs, of George Gissing and Arnold Bennett, both posthumously published, together with an impressive diary of his wartime experiences as an adrenalin-fuelled, petrol-headed despatch rider with the ANZACs, racing across much of the Western Front, which was published recently. Unpublished novels exist, and the author and his work appear ripe for rediscovery. Scarce.
DAVIS, Oswald Harcourt. Home Brewed. London: Dent. 1932. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s brown cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the excellent wraparound dust jacket that goes uncredited. A very good copy, the cloth clean and bright, the gilt lettering dulled but legible, the binding tight and square. The contents clean and fine but for some very mild foxing to edges and prelims. The dust jacket price-clipped, with loss to spine head and much smaller nicks and tiny chips to other corners and edges, some rubbing to all joints, and adhesive tape reinforcement to verso. A handsome copy nonetheless.
A rather unusual novel which uses at its core that most joyful of liquids—beer. The novel follows Hilary, raised of virtuous standing in a Midlands town who, in despair of his unrequited love for his cousin, becomes publican of a gritty outfit, engrossing himself in all its lowlife characters, later smitten with a prostitute while his broken marriage drifts asunder, then wangled into a manslaughter charge. Oswald Davis’ third published novel of four, most of which set among the working class people of Birmingham where he grew up. He wrote two monographs, of George Gissing and Arnold Bennett, both posthumously published, together with an impressive diary of his wartime experiences as an adrenalin-fuelled, petrol-headed despatch rider with the ANZACs, racing across much of the Western Front, which was published recently. Unpublished novels exist, and the author and his work appear ripe for rediscovery. Scarce.
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