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The Fountain Overflows.
by West, Rebecca
- Used
- Hardcover
- Signed
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: The Viking Press, 1956. First edition of this classic work. Octavo, original half cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "My love to Beatrice and Bruce- who first gave the Fountain its chance to flow Rebecca West 1965." The recipients, Bruce Gould and Beatrice Blackmar Gould were co-editors of the Ladies' Home Journal for almost 27 years, from 1935 through 1962, including the golden years of the magazine. Time magazine wrote upon their 1962 retirement, the Goulds took an undistinguished journal in a field that "took the patronizing view that a woman's interests were largely confined to the home" and led by "Beatrice's sure feeling for the emancipated women's tastes, it invited its readers to plunge up to the elbows not only in bread dough but in life." The magazine pushed for "purity in politics as well as in maternity wards" and fought against venereal disease and child abuse. Attention-getting articles and addressing feminine health problems openly were published, as well as top fiction pieces." Near fine in a very good dust jacket, with the owner's name to the front free endpaper. Jacket design by Jeanyee Wong. An excellent association. In The Fountain Overflows, a 1957 best seller, Rebecca West transmuted her own volatile childhood into enduring art. This is an unvarnished but affectionate picture of an extraordinary family, in which a remarkable stylist and powerful intelligence surveys the elusive boundaries of childhood and adulthood, freedom and dependency, the ordinary and the occult.
Synopsis
Rebecca West (1892-1983) was born Cicily Isabel Fairfield, the youngest of three daughters of Charles Fairfield, a journalist in London, and Isabel Mackenzie, a talented pianist who supported her family by giving music lessons. Fairfield was a brilliant storyteller who entertained his daughters with tales of wild adventures in America and Australia, but he was moody and unreliable, and in 1901 he left his wife and children to go to Sierra Leone, where he hoped to start a pharmaceutical plant. The plan failed, and he returned to London, though not to his family, dying when Cicily was fourteen. Inspired by such stars of the stage as Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Cicily hoped to become an actress, and in 1910 she enrolled in the Academy of Dramatic Art. Soon, however, she abandoned her theatrical ambitions and joined the staff of the feminist journal The Freewoman , for which she began to write regularly under the name of Rebecca West (adopted after playing that character in a performance of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm ). Among Rebecca West’s protean accomplishments are critical studies of two writers she deeply admired, Henry James and D.H. Lawrence; Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), a vast work about pre-World War II Yugoslavia that combines history, political analysis, and vivid descriptions of travel; The Meaning of Treason (1947); and several novels, beginning with The Return of the Soldier (1918) and including The Fountain Overflows (1956), which is closely modeled on the events of her own childhood. Andrea Barrett is the author of five novels, most recently The Voyage of the Narwhal , and two collections of short fiction, Ship Fever , which received the 1996 National Book Award, and Servants of the Map . A MacArthur Fellow, she was also a Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Raptis Rare Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 145967
- Title
- The Fountain Overflows.
- Author
- West, Rebecca
- Book Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- The Viking Press
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1956
- Keywords
- Fountain Overflows Signed First Edition, Rebecca West First Edition Signed
Terms of Sale
Raptis Rare Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed.
About the Seller
Raptis Rare Books
Biblio member since 2012
Palm Beach, Florida
About Raptis Rare Books
Founded by Matthew and Adrienne Raptis, Raptis Rare Books is an antiquarian book firm that specializes in literature, children's books, economics, photo books, signed and inscribed books, and landmark books in all fields. Our business model is simple: we strive to handle books that are in exceptional condition and to provide exceptional customer service.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Association Copy
- An association copy is a copy of a book which has been signed and inscribed by the author for a personal friend, colleague, or...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Inscribed
- When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
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