HANLEY, James. Men in Darkness. Five Stories. With a preface by John Cowper Powys. London: The Bodley Head. 1931. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’ black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the wonderfully surreal dust jacket designed by Alan Odle. A near fine copy, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and very gently rolled. Red topstain a touch faded, with a few mild spots to textblock edges, seldom seeping, the contents fine. The dust jacket unclipped (7/6 net), very gently bumped, one small closed tear to spine head, and a faint stain to front panel, but very presentable.
The author’s second collection of short stories, each ‘shot through with pity and compassion’ for characters from the world of labour and suffering. Five fantastical stories here from the Liverpudlian, with a printed dedication to ‘Tim’, that being Dorothy Heathcote, future mother to his children and eventual wife. The book marks the beginning of the forging of Hanley as author, who had spent much of his life prior aboard ships, hence the consistent use of men at sea in these short stories and indeed in his other works. His first novel, Drift, was eventually published in 1930, after seventeen rejections, and 1931 included the publication of Men in Darkness, the Nancy Cunard-dedicated novel Boy—which later landed him in trouble, plus the novella The Last Voyage. Hanley met Powys, who wrote the introduction, in 1929, and the pair and their wives struck up a life-long friendship. The dust jacket design is by Alan Odle, a master of the grotesque who found little fame in his own life. He was married to the modernist Dorothy Richardson, and when Richardson suggested to her publishers Duckworth Odle design the wrapper for her Dawn’s Left Hand (1931), they replied ‘that is not now usual to add decorative jackets to the superior, intellectual type of novel’. Nevertheless, Odle’s designs had already been used for her The Trap (1925) and Oberland (1926). He produced a design for another of Hanley’s works, Ebb and Flood, these representing much of his work in the medium. Gibbs A5b.
HANLEY, James. Men in Darkness. Five Stories. With a preface by John Cowper Powys. London: The Bodley Head. 1931. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’ black cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the wonderfully surreal dust jacket designed by Alan Odle. A near fine copy, the cloth clean and bright, the binding tight and very gently rolled. Red topstain a touch faded, with a few mild spots to textblock edges, seldom seeping, the contents fine. The dust jacket unclipped (7/6 net), very gently bumped, one small closed tear to spine head, and a faint stain to front panel, but very presentable.
The author’s second collection of short stories, each ‘shot through with pity and compassion’ for characters from the world of labour and suffering. Five fantastical stories here from the Liverpudlian, with a printed dedication to ‘Tim’, that being Dorothy Heathcote, future mother to his children and eventual wife. The book marks the beginning of the forging of Hanley as author, who had spent much of his life prior aboard ships, hence the consistent use of men at sea in these short stories and indeed in his other works. His first novel, Drift, was eventually published in 1930, after seventeen rejections, and 1931 included the publication of Men in Darkness, the Nancy Cunard-dedicated novel Boy—which later landed him in trouble, plus the novella The Last Voyage. Hanley met Powys, who wrote the introduction, in 1929, and the pair and their wives struck up a life-long friendship. The dust jacket design is by Alan Odle, a master of the grotesque who found little fame in his own life. He was married to the modernist Dorothy Richardson, and when Richardson suggested to her publishers Duckworth Odle design the wrapper for her Dawn’s Left Hand (1931), they replied ‘that is not now usual to add decorative jackets to the superior, intellectual type of novel’. Nevertheless, Odle’s designs had already been used for her The Trap (1925) and Oberland (1926). He produced a design for another of Hanley’s works, Ebb and Flood, these representing much of his work in the medium. Gibbs A5b.
