Drama

London & New York: Putnam, 1940. Very Good. FIRST UK EDITION, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. Large 8vo, pp. ix, (i), 376, (3). Brown cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt. Slight lean to spine, gilt faded, extremities bruised and bumped, splits to head of spine, faint blotching to upper board, scoring to bottom board. Inscribed in blue pen on ffep: "Henrietta Leslie/ from/ Desmond MacCarthy/ June 1945.", toned and occasionally foxed. Else, internally clean, tight and tidy. Good+ Sir Desmond MacCarthy (1877-1952) was a literary reviewer, drama critic and magazine editor, and member of the Bloomsbury group (his wife, Molly, is thought to have coined the term). From 1928, when MacCarthy succeeded Edmund Gosse as the principal reviewer for the Sunday Times and began the literary monthly, Life and Letters, he was arguably the most influential literary journalist of the period (ODNB). (Gladys) Henrietta Sch�tze, who wrote as Henrietta Leslie (1884-1946), was, like Constance Smedley (see QB item ref: 2388), a prolific author and pacifist, with links to the WSPU: she acted as a courier for the organisation, as well as hosting Mrs Pankhurst. Best known for her novel Mrs Fischer's War (1931), based on her family's ostracism during WWI, she also worked on the Daily Herald. She was "a tireless worker for women's rights, for children's welfare, and for peace. Above all, [again, like Smedley] she asserted her right to be accepted as a professional, both as a journalist and as a writer of fiction. H. G. Wells once called the young Henrietta Leslie an amateur; she spent a lifetime proving him wrong" (ODNB). MacCarthy and Sch�tze may have known each other through their journalism; while Sch�tze wrote a number of plays, none ever reached print.