The Notebooks of Henry James

Oxford Press, 1947. First Edition. hardcover. Very Good/Good. 0x0x0. 1947 first edition Oxford University Press (New York), association copy (children's author/illustrator Maurice Sendak), 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches tall blue cloth hardcover in publisher's dust jacket, gilt design to front cover, gilt lettering to spine, xxviii, 425 pp. Very slight soiling, rubbing and edgewear to covers, with very minor staining to fore page edges. A couple of pencil bibliographic notations to the blank front and rear endpapers, possibly by former owner, author/illustrator Maurice Sendak (1928-2012). Otherwise, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked - in a slightly age-toned and edgeworn dust jacket which is nicely preserved and displayed in a clear archival Brodart sleeve. No Sendak bookplate, but an original, signed certificate of provenance is laid in from the auction house which establishes that the book was from the personal library of Sendak, and was sold on behalf of the famed Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia. Sendak was known to be an inveterate reader of nineteenth-century authors, including Henry James. His library included a large number of volumes by and about James, including this work. ~SP08~ [2.5P] The collected private notes made by the American-British novelist and critic Henry James (1843-1916), regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. Usually the notes are of a professional nature and concern ideas for possible or ongoing fictions, but there are a number of personal notes as well. James made entries in the Notebooks throughout most of his career. The Notebooks weren't published until 1947, when they appeared in this edition compiled by F. O. Matthiessen and Kenneth Murdock. The editors point out notebook entries that eventually turned into finished works by James, and then go beyond that simple editorial function to discuss and evaluate the works themselves. Maurice Bernard Sendak (1928-2012) was an American author and illustrator of children's books. He became most widely known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1963. His 2012 New York Times obituary called Sendak "the most important children's book artist of the 20th century." In 1968, Sendak lent the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the bulk of his work, including nearly 10,000 works of art, manuscripts, books and ephemera. Two years after his death, the Rosenbach filed an action in state probate court in Connecticut, contending that Sendak's estate had kept many rare books that the author/illustrator had pledged to the library in his will. But the judge awarded the bulk of the disputed book collection to the Sendak estate, not to the museum, and this was among the books sold at auction by The Rosenbach, with the proceeds likely going to Sendak's estate.