Walter Sickert: A Conversation

First edition. Sm. 8vo. Pp. 28, [4 (blank)]. Pale green sewn wraps printed in black, with cover design by Vanessa Bell. No separate U.S. publication issued.

With the fly-leaf ownership signature of Enid Bagnold (1889–1981), novelist, playwright, society hostess and Samantha Cameron's great-grandmother, best known for her novel National Velvet (1935). Virginia Woolf in her inimitable putdown called the charismatic maverick 'a scallywag who married a very rich man' (Sir Roderick Jones, Chairman of Reuters). Card covers somewhat darkened along spine ridge, oxidized paperclip residue to upper front cover and pp. 4/5, indecipherable biroed note to front cover top, a handful of sections biro-lined to margins, page-block creased to top corner tip, else Very Good.

Originally published in The Yale Review as 'A Conversation About Art'. A formalist essay written at her sister's and the subject's request, where the author terms art as 'literary painting' and great writers as 'great colourists'.

[Kirkpatrick A20a; Woolmer 355]