WHARTON, Edith

Artemis to Actaeon

First English edition from American sheets with the title page a cancel. Cloth at the top of the spine repaired, some random light foxing else a very good copy lacking the rare dustwrapper. According to Garrison one of only 250 copies of the English edition. The American edition itself is quite uncommon, this edition many times more so. Inscribed by Wharton in an uncharacteristically light tone to her lifelong friend Daisy Chanler "Dear Daisy, In lieu of a dreary book here's a silly one from yr. affte. Edith May 1909." The inscription is perhaps some indication of Wharton's self-consciousness about these poems as they were the direct expression of her passion for Morton Fullerton, with whom she was engaged in an ongoing affair. Chanler was one of Wharton's closest friends. Yale's Beinecke Library has over a hundred letters from Wharton to Chanler that span a fifty year period.

[BTC #1073]