GREEN, Julian. The Dreamer
GREEN, Julian. The Dreamer. Trans. from the French by Vyvyan Holland. London: Heinemann. 1934. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s cream cloth lettered in mauve to the spine, in the original dust jacket. An about fine copy, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, the contents clean throughout. The dust jacket unclipped (7/6 net), spine panel a little toned, light marks and gentle rubbing elsewhere but a most handsome copy.
Originally published in the French as ‘Le visionnaire’ in the same year, The Dreamer is considered one of Green’s most accomplished novels. Green was born in Paris to American parents and spent almost his entire life there. His novels, essays, and diaries were almost exclusively written in French, and he occasionally translated his own works. Though closely linked to the Catholic Church, he was openly homosexual and declared his relationships with men—most notably Robert de Saint-Jean—were platonic, or ‘under control’. The novel is a strange one; a psychological novel exploring Freud’s theory of the unconscious: “the reader will find nothing that is cheerful and little that is normal”, the front flap blurb warns. Narrated primarily by a fifteen-year-old boy orphaned by a mother whose daughter she has rejected, it is complicated by sexual relations between the daughter and the orphan. Green’s love of Paris and of the French language endured, and he was elected to the L’Académie française, the first and only American to be so. Green kept a daily journal which was published in his lifetime, and was celebrated. More recently, his unexpurgated diaries were published and exposed, much to the horror of the Catholic Church, Green’s rampant sex life, his many partners, his open relationship with de Saint Jean, and his antisemitism, which only slightly stained his enigmatic reputation. He remains perhaps the most unique twentieth century American writer. The first British edition here published alongside the American. Scarce.
GREEN, Julian. The Dreamer. Trans. from the French by Vyvyan Holland. London: Heinemann. 1934. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s cream cloth lettered in mauve to the spine, in the original dust jacket. An about fine copy, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, the contents clean throughout. The dust jacket unclipped (7/6 net), spine panel a little toned, light marks and gentle rubbing elsewhere but a most handsome copy.
Originally published in the French as ‘Le visionnaire’ in the same year, The Dreamer is considered one of Green’s most accomplished novels. Green was born in Paris to American parents and spent almost his entire life there. His novels, essays, and diaries were almost exclusively written in French, and he occasionally translated his own works. Though closely linked to the Catholic Church, he was openly homosexual and declared his relationships with men—most notably Robert de Saint-Jean—were platonic, or ‘under control’. The novel is a strange one; a psychological novel exploring Freud’s theory of the unconscious: “the reader will find nothing that is cheerful and little that is normal”, the front flap blurb warns. Narrated primarily by a fifteen-year-old boy orphaned by a mother whose daughter she has rejected, it is complicated by sexual relations between the daughter and the orphan. Green’s love of Paris and of the French language endured, and he was elected to the L’Académie française, the first and only American to be so. Green kept a daily journal which was published in his lifetime, and was celebrated. More recently, his unexpurgated diaries were published and exposed, much to the horror of the Catholic Church, Green’s rampant sex life, his many partners, his open relationship with de Saint Jean, and his antisemitism, which only slightly stained his enigmatic reputation. He remains perhaps the most unique twentieth century American writer. The first British edition here published alongside the American. Scarce.
GREEN, Julian. The Dreamer. Trans. from the French by Vyvyan Holland. London: Heinemann. 1934. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s cream cloth lettered in mauve to the spine, in the original dust jacket. An about fine copy, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and square, the contents clean throughout. The dust jacket unclipped (7/6 net), spine panel a little toned, light marks and gentle rubbing elsewhere but a most handsome copy.
Originally published in the French as ‘Le visionnaire’ in the same year, The Dreamer is considered one of Green’s most accomplished novels. Green was born in Paris to American parents and spent almost his entire life there. His novels, essays, and diaries were almost exclusively written in French, and he occasionally translated his own works. Though closely linked to the Catholic Church, he was openly homosexual and declared his relationships with men—most notably Robert de Saint-Jean—were platonic, or ‘under control’. The novel is a strange one; a psychological novel exploring Freud’s theory of the unconscious: “the reader will find nothing that is cheerful and little that is normal”, the front flap blurb warns. Narrated primarily by a fifteen-year-old boy orphaned by a mother whose daughter she has rejected, it is complicated by sexual relations between the daughter and the orphan. Green’s love of Paris and of the French language endured, and he was elected to the L’Académie française, the first and only American to be so. Green kept a daily journal which was published in his lifetime, and was celebrated. More recently, his unexpurgated diaries were published and exposed, much to the horror of the Catholic Church, Green’s rampant sex life, his many partners, his open relationship with de Saint Jean, and his antisemitism, which only slightly stained his enigmatic reputation. He remains perhaps the most unique twentieth century American writer. The first British edition here published alongside the American. Scarce.