[Rarebooks] FS: 3 by D. H. Lawrence including a superb letter to Gilbert Seldes about the U.S. "a vast, unreal, intermediary thing intervening between the real thing which was Europe and the next real thing"

[Charles Agvent]

Price reduced:    Was $75   Now  $45:

(LAWRENCE, D. H.) M., M. MEMOIRS OF THE FOREIGN LEGION. New York: Alfred 
A. Knopf, 1925. First Edition. With a 79-page introduction by D. H. 
Lawrence. The author, Maurice Magnus, met Lawrence in Italy after he had 
deserted the Legion. Flat broke but totally convinced of his higher 
class standing, Magnus attempted to live at a higher means, simply 
borrowing more money from his very tolerant friends until his debt 
caught up to him and he killed himself with the police outside his door. 
The introduction to this fascinating memoir is considered to be one of 
Lawrence's greatest works. Short tear to the head of the spine; light 
soiling to the rear cover. Very Good, lacking the dustwrapper. 
(#007487)        $45.00
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LAWRENCE, D. H. SONS AND LOVERS. Avon, CT: Limited Editions Club, 1975. 
Quarto (7" x 10-1/2") bound in full imported homespun Irish linen. 
Introduction by Robert Gorham Davis. Designed by Bert Clarke. 
Illustrated with 12 collage blocks in four colors and 16 part-page 
drawings in black and white by Sheila Robinson. Printed at the press of 
A. Colish on rag paper made especially for this edition. Copy #54 of 
2000 SIGNED by the illustrator on the colophon page. Fine in glassine 
and a Fine slipcase. (#010242)        $75.00
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LAWRENCE, D. H. AUTOGRAPHED LETTER SIGNED (ALS). Questa, New Mexico, 25 
February 1923. Superb two-page letter mentioning his work as well as his 
views of America, SIGNED as "D. H. Lawrence" with an initialed 
postcript. Addressed from the Del Monte Ranch to noted author and critic 
Gilbert Seldes on both sides of an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. In full: 
"Your letter from Semmering last evening. - We were in Austria in 1921. 
THE CAPTAIN'S DOLL ends in Zell-am-See. I often think of Austria. Let 
Curtis Brown have KANGAROO as soon as you can, will you? (Not THE K.) I 
don't really mind if you mention it before it is published. It is 
usually publishers who have feelings about these things. No, I am not 
disappointed in America. I said I was coming to Europe this spring. But 
I don't want to. We leave in a fortnight for Old Mexico. Perhaps I shall 
come back here. If you write, address me c/o Thomas Seltzer, 5 West 50th 
St. But I feel, about U.S.A., as I vaguely felt a long time ago: that 
this is a vast, unreal, intermediary thing intervening between the real 
thing which was Europe and the next real thing, which will probably be 
in America, but which isn't yet, at all. Seems to one a vast 
death-happening must come first. But probably it is here, in America (I 
don't say just U.S.A.) that the quick will keep alive & come through. I 
got proofs of the Prof. Sherman criticism along with your letter. Hope 
it will Amuse you." The postscript: "If you go to Vienna, look up 
Elizabeth Humes, at the Office of the American Commercial Commission. 
I'm sure you'd like her. My wife & I like her very much." This letter 
has been published in the standard Cambridge University Press edition of 
Lawrence's letters. Folds from mailing with some edgewear and small 
chips. Still Very Good.

See an image of the first page of this letter here:

http://home.ptd.net/~chagvent/015324.jpg

Gilbert Seldes--critic, editor, novelist, playwright, screenwriter--was 
the first American intellectual to lend legitimacy to popular culture. 
Seldes was managing editor of THE DIAL and wrote one of the first 
American reviews of James Joyce's ULYSSES for THE NATION. He also wrote 
radio scripts and became the first director of television for CBS News 
and the founding dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the 
University of Pennsylvania. (#015324)        $3,500.00

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