Beschreibung:

Elizabethan Essays.
London: Faber & Faber, 1934. 8vo. Original green cloth with gilt spine title in dust jacket. Condition: very light scattered spotting to endpapers; spine panel faded and chipped with minor loss at ends. Provenance: Vivien(ne) Eliot (pencilled signature "V.H. Eliot" to endpaper). an emblematic association: vivien eliot's copy, simply signed without inscription by her estranged husband on the title page, perhaps at one of their last meetings Eliot and his wife had recently separated after much tumult when this book came out, with the poet trying to avoid his one-time collaborator at every turn. The two only met again once before Vivien's death, and an insight into how coldly Eliot could treat his estranged spouse occurred at a book signing: "The public confrontation which Eliot had sought for so long to avoid at last occurred on 18 November [1935], at the Sunday Times Book Fair at Dorland House, Lower Regent Street. Apart from their brief meeting at the solicitor's office, it was the first time since September 1932 that they had come face to face. . . . A small, fierce, dramatic figure, she strode in, clutching three of Eliot's latest books and holding her dog Polly in her arms; she fought her way to the front of the lecture room. . . . Directly she was in the midst of the crush, she head steps behind and, turning around, found Tom just behind her. . . . As Eliot finished his talk to great applause, Vivienne pushed her way up to the platform, and let the dog off the lead. The terrier ran to Eliot. . . . Vivienne, too, mounted the platform, and stood beside Eliot, her hands on the table on which were piled the poet's books. "I said quietly, 'Will you come back with me?" "I cannot talk to you now," replied Eliot, hurriedly signing the books Vivienne had brought. He then left with a young writer, Richard Church, who had been chairing the evening." see Carole Seymour-Jones's Painted Shadow (p. 547-548). While it is unknown if the present copy was one of the the titles Vivienne brought and her husband so hurriedly signed, given the date of publication and strained nature of the relationship, by this time, it is certainly likely. Gallup A27 (with cancel half-title).