A House with Four Rooms - Autobiography: Volume Two.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.NFINE/NFINE.No owner inscrptn,and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,coloured flower freized borders/edges on pink background illustrated dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges or corners - no nicks or tears present - a few minor indentations to both upper+ rear wraps.Top+fore-edges aged/toned - as usual/normal - contents bright,tight and clean apart from page-edge toning, bright,clean,air-force blue paper-covered boards with bright,crisp, stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain white eps.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,12+18-319pp [paginated] includes half-title+title pages,contents list,Pts 1-3,an epilogue,16pp contemporary b/w photographs in 2 blocks of 8pp apiece,between pp96/7 and pp224/25 respectively and an appendix (four poems for Emily Dickinson). The second volume of Rumer Godden's evocative and absorbing autobiography,'A House with Four Rooms' begins where 'A Time to Dance,No Time to Weep' ended, with a gruelling journey and the need to start all over again.Rumer Godden left India with her two small daughters in July 1945,sailing from Bombay to Liverpool on a troopship that proved as much a test of survival as the filth and squalor of the army transit camp they left behind.They arrived to find England battered by war and burdened with rationing but Darrynane,the Godden parents' home, wonderfully unchanged. Everything seemed perfect - but this could not last for ever. Rumer's children left for boarding school; their mother moved to a tiny mews house in London and began to write again.With characteristic elegance,honesty and wit,Rumer Godden describes the London of the late 1940's and the literary and publishing worlds she came to know: her relationship with James Haynes-Dixon,who became her second husband; the origins of her novels, her research and their reception; the film of Black Narcissus, directed by Michael Powell,and Jean Renoir's film The River,for which she travelled back to India to advise on location.She tells of her visits to America,farming life in Buckinghamshire,the Old Hall in Highgate and theatrical friends and,finally in this tale of many houses,her move to Lamb House in Rye,once the home of Henry James and appropriately echoing with literary association. Rumer Godden's life has been so extraordinarily rich,her observations are so acute and her insights so perceptive that every page of this volume of autobiography,like the first,is one to treasure.Rumer Godden was born in Sussex in 1907 but lived in India for most of her early life,which she describes in the first volume of her autobiography, 'A Time to Dance,No Time to Weep'. She is the author of many enduring novels for adults and children including 'Black Narcissus', 'The Greengage Summer' and 'In this House of Brede' and,with her sister Jon Godden,the childhood memoirs,'Two Under the Indian Sun' and a collection of short stories,'Indian Dust'. A nice solid,sound copy with ageing/tanning the most noticeable fault.A scarce title in this condition. Please contact rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,because of the lighter weight and the value of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!