Orlando. A Biography.

Limited first edition. Small royal 8vo. Pp. [iv], 333, [1, blank], [1, limitation page], [1, blank]. Frontispiece, plus 7 half-tone photographic illustrations, including 3 of Vita Sackville-West as Orlando, taken by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell at Knole House. With a 'fictional' Index to rear. Typography by Frederic Warde and composition by William Edwin Rudge. Black cloth, elaborately decorated and lettered in gilt to spine protruding on to upper and lower boards, publisher's monogram with gilt emblem of a ram to front cover; top edge gilt, others untrimmed. In the original, unprinted glassine dustwrapper, marginally chipped to edges, else Fine.

#203/800 numbered copies signed by the author, in her characteristic purple ink to verso of half-title, out of a total printing run of 861.

Published 2 October 1928 at $15. Preceding by nine days the UK first trade edition, published by the Hogarth Press on 11 October.

An uncommonly uncut copy, with fore and bottom edges toned, as usual, and textblock clean and fresh throughout.

"Come, come! I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another." Conceived as a "writer's holiday" from more structured and demanding novels and dedicated to the author's friend and (rumoured) lover Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is a mock 'biography' of a chameleon-like historical figure who changes sex and identity at will. The story concludes on Thursday, 11th October 1928 – the date of the novel's first Hogarth Press publication, bringing to a close Woolf's playful and exuberant romp through history. Sackville-West's son, Nigel, would later describe it as 'the longest and most charming love letter in literature'. Basis for the 1992 Academy Award-nominated film directed by Sally Potter, starring Tilda Swinton in the title role and Quentin Crisp as Elizabeth I. "A poetic masterpiece of the first rank." –Rebecca West

[Kirkpatrick A11a; Woolmer 185]