Jam To-day

Firminger (Marjorie).    [Vendôme Press], Paris,  1931 First Edition    Brown half calf, spine in compartments with raised bands with gilt ornaments and two green leather labels lettered in gilt, original yellow illustrated wrappers (rows of pots of jam) bound in, top edge gilt Very nice copy Pearson (Neil). Obelisk. A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press, Liverpool University Press, 2007, A-7b, both Pearson’s vriants in white wrappers This, the author’s first and only novel, never reprinted, a “masochistic act of social suicide”, was much derided, and led to the author’s abandonment by the friends lampooned therein. It was also seized by British customs on the grounds of obscenity. Firminger had fallen in love with Wyndham Lewis who also distanced himself from her. See Pearson, and Joshua Cohen’s “Hung Like an Obelisk, Hard as an Olympian; an alphabet of English-language literature in Paris” in the New Haven Review online for the full rather tragic story.This copy is a variant with a title-page that omits the Vendôme Press name. This presumably happened .at the point that Kahane took over the Vendôme business, but before it became Obelisk. 

Price: £450