Immortal Village

University of Chicago Press, 1945. First edition. Hardcover. Fine/Near fine. Landacre, Paul [woodblocks]. Uncommon signed, and an uncommonly lovely inscription as well, in blue ink on the half-title page: "For George, inscribed on that day before the laurel flowered and the Stanford Museum opened its lovely eye, but a good day withal, one more of these unforgettable ones with Arlene & George in the woods, by the brook, while the warblers called. June 12, 1946. Don Peattie." Peattie is best known as a writer and champion of nature writing and natural history, but Immortal Village is an updated version of the history of a small town, Vence, in Southern France that Peattie wrote in the late 1920s. As the jacket describes, "Two days after their arrival [in France], their little daughter died." The couple hid out in their grief in Vence and Peattie threw himself into a history of the town and published a private book, Vence, of 500 copies that didn't go beyond France. This new edition is a "recast story" telling a broader European history via Vence not quite twenty years later. There was a slipcased limited edition of Immortal Village, 500 copies signed by the author and illustrator, but this is not one of them and it is more uncommon for it though it's a second printing--no other inscribed copies are available at the time of this writing, let alone one with this level of sentiment. Small octavo, blue illustrations on sand-colored cloth boards, decorative red map endpapers, red topstain. A near fine book due to a slight brown ghosting on the half-title page from something once laid in; in a near fine jacket--great shape overall.