[Rarebooks] FS: Edith Wharton INSCRIBED to an old friend

[Charles Agvent]

WHARTON, Edith. THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY. New York: Charles Scribner's 
Sons, 1913. First Edition. Original red cloth, lettered in gilt. 
INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the front endpaper: "'For Miss 
Reubell/from Edith Wharton/Nov. 1913." A scarce book to find signed, 
this is to Henrietta "Etta" Reubell, described by Wharton in her 
autobiography, A BACKWARD GLANCE, as "my old friend, and Henry James's" 
(Chapter 11). Reubell had a salon at her home where cosmopolitan 
expatriate writers and artists would visit including James McNeill 
Whistler, Oscar Wilde, and John Singer Sargent, who painted her 
portrait. In an 1876 letter from Paris to his brother, William James, 
Henry describes several women, including Reubell: "The other is a 
certain Miss Reubell, who has lived here always, is twenty-seven or 
twenty-eight years old and extremely ugly, but with something very 
frank, intelligent and agreeable about her. If I wanted to desire to 
marry an ugly Parisian-American, with money and toutes les elegances, 
and a very considerable capacity for development if transported into a 
favoring medium, Miss R would be a very good objective" (Edel, Leon: 
HENRY JAMES LETTERS, Volume II, pp. 41-42). James wrote more than 100 
letters to Reubell. It is not known how many he received from her. This 
copy has 7 minor corrections made to the text, certainly by Wharton. The 
most recent inscribed copy we could locate at auction, which sold at 
Christies London in 2002 for about what we are charging for this copy, 
was noted as having 3 corrections, matching 3 of the 7 here. On the 
front pastedown is the bookplate of The American Library in Paris Inc. 
1920. Bookplate stamped "Discarded" with slight offsetting to the 
endpaper; perforated stamp to bottom margin of one text page; slight 
foxing to the front endpaper and a few other pages; rear endpapers with 
library slip and pocket, also stamped; front hinge cracked and a little 
loose. Covers are bright with strong gilt, a small white ink symbol on 
the spine. Easily Very Good or better, despite the library markings. 
(#020667)        $7,500

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/020667/edith-wharton/the-custom-of-the-country

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