HANLEY, James. Aria and Finale. London: Boriswood. 1932. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s aquamarine cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the marvellously expressive dust jacket designed in woodcut by James Boswell. A fine copy. The cloth perhaps very slightly discoloured at backstrip, but sharp and clean. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and bright. The dust jacket unclipped (5s net) and fine, just a trifle nicked at extremities with one very small closed tears.
Hanley’s collection of three short stories—the titular sub-titled ‘A sketch for a Novel’, The Last Voyage, and Stoker Haslett, the latter two stories having been previously published in standalone limited editions, the former written, or ‘sketched’, only eight weeks prior to publication, and all now recognised as a component of Hanley’s modernist transition. The production, of course, by legendary interwar publishers, Boriswood, publishers of less than 70 books in its eight sparkling years of existence, exhibiting some of the finest quality editions in this period, often signed and limited editions. This title, the only edition, is a cut above the regular trade edition of the time, printed at the Alcuin Press in Campden, Gloucestershire, and using Boswell’s tremendous wood engraving as jacket, and using higher quality paper for jacket and text. Hanley was probably the publisher’s most important and most praised author. Gibbs A8a.
HANLEY, James. Aria and Finale. London: Boriswood. 1932. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s aquamarine cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the marvellously expressive dust jacket designed in woodcut by James Boswell. A fine copy. The cloth perhaps very slightly discoloured at backstrip, but sharp and clean. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and bright. The dust jacket unclipped (5s net) and fine, just a trifle nicked at extremities with one very small closed tears.
Hanley’s collection of three short stories—the titular sub-titled ‘A sketch for a Novel’, The Last Voyage, and Stoker Haslett, the latter two stories having been previously published in standalone limited editions, the former written, or ‘sketched’, only eight weeks prior to publication, and all now recognised as a component of Hanley’s modernist transition. The production, of course, by legendary interwar publishers, Boriswood, publishers of less than 70 books in its eight sparkling years of existence, exhibiting some of the finest quality editions in this period, often signed and limited editions. This title, the only edition, is a cut above the regular trade edition of the time, printed at the Alcuin Press in Campden, Gloucestershire, and using Boswell’s tremendous wood engraving as jacket, and using higher quality paper for jacket and text. Hanley was probably the publisher’s most important and most praised author. Gibbs A8a.
