[Pilgrimage] Interim

London: Duckworth & Co., 1919. Cloth. Good+. FIRST EDITION. Publisher's blue cloth, spine and upper board lettered and ruled in black. Spine and board edges faded, head of spine frayed and bumped, dints to top edge. Edges darkened and endpapers a little grubby, toned, "File" scored, decisively, in black pencil across title page, as was Duckworth's practice, else, tight and tidy. Good+ A grand association copy of the fifth "chapter" of Richardson's pioneering modernist project. From Duckworth's archive and the library of Alice Thomas Ellis (1932-2005, born Anna Lindholm), novelist, columnist & who, as Anna Haycraft, was Duckworth's highly respected fiction editor from 1968, when her husband, Colin Haycraft, bought the publishing house. Haycraft's most celebrated client was Beryl Bainbridge, and Thomas Ellis' most well known novels were the Booker-nominated The 27th Kingdom (1982) and Unexplained Laughter (1985). Her novels were "spare, beautifully written, and often with a supernatural or macabre element" and complex, like herself and her subject matter: "She wrote about strong and independent women, yet she was staunchly anti-feminist. She was averse to housework, but cooked delicious food for her friends and children's friends who dropped by, though she rarely sat down to eat, preferring to linger in the doorway, throwing an occasional remark into the conversation." (Colvin, 2005). (Provenance: Trevanion & Dean Auctioneers). Clare Colvin (2005) 'Obituary: Alice Thomas Ellis', The Guardian.