VAN VECHTEN, Carl. Sacred and Profane Memories. London: Cassell. 1931. 8vo. First British edition printed from American sheets, being one of 2000 numbered copies, this number 1818. Publisher’s green cloth lettered in black to the spine, in the typographic dust jacket. Very good. Cloth clean and bright, a trifle bumped at corners and tips. Binding tight and square, the contents clean and bright throughout, offsetting to endpapers but without stamps or inscriptions. With four excellent plates showing the author’s relatives. The dust jacket price-clipped, the spine heavily darkened, chipped around crown, less so to corners and tips, altogether smart.
A nice copy of Van Vechten’s intimate and often nostalgic memoir of yesteryear, from his pleasant Cedar Rapids childhood to his arrival in Florence on the day the First World War broke out. It is told with Van Vechten’s typical clarity, the sort which resulted in much of his contemporaneous praise overshadowed by notoriety so-called, though his willingness to support other writers and artists—Gertrude Stein, and many from the Harlem Renaissance in particular—remains still underrated in this cataloguer’s opinion. Indeed, by the time of publication, Miguel Covarrubias had introduced Van Vechten to the 35mm Leica camera and thus he planned to give up writing and sought to photograph his many, many friends and associates, to global acclaim. This was his final published book. The UK edition is uncommon.
VAN VECHTEN, Carl. Sacred and Profane Memories. London: Cassell. 1931. 8vo. First British edition printed from American sheets, being one of 2000 numbered copies, this number 1818. Publisher’s green cloth lettered in black to the spine, in the typographic dust jacket. Very good. Cloth clean and bright, a trifle bumped at corners and tips. Binding tight and square, the contents clean and bright throughout, offsetting to endpapers but without stamps or inscriptions. With four excellent plates showing the author’s relatives. The dust jacket price-clipped, the spine heavily darkened, chipped around crown, less so to corners and tips, altogether smart.
A nice copy of Van Vechten’s intimate and often nostalgic memoir of yesteryear, from his pleasant Cedar Rapids childhood to his arrival in Florence on the day the First World War broke out. It is told with Van Vechten’s typical clarity, the sort which resulted in much of his contemporaneous praise overshadowed by notoriety so-called, though his willingness to support other writers and artists—Gertrude Stein, and many from the Harlem Renaissance in particular—remains still underrated in this cataloguer’s opinion. Indeed, by the time of publication, Miguel Covarrubias had introduced Van Vechten to the 35mm Leica camera and thus he planned to give up writing and sought to photograph his many, many friends and associates, to global acclaim. This was his final published book. The UK edition is uncommon.
