WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941). The Common Reader. [etc.]

WOOLF, Virginia (1882-1941). The Common Reader. London: Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, 1925. 8vo (214 x 140mm). Half title. Original grey cloth-backed coloured pictorial paper boards by Vanessa Bell (corners rubbed and bumped, some light staining, without the dust-jacket). FIRST EDITION. IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY, the front pastedown inscribed and signed in pencil: “Sherfield Court, Sherfield upon Loddon. Dorothy Wellesley 1925”, and further signed and inscribed in ink: “Dorothy Wellesley, Penns in the Rocks, 1954.” Dorothy Wellesley (1889-1956), an accomplished writer and poet who was highly regarded and championed by W. B. Yeats, worked as an editor for Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press. She is perhaps now chiefly remembered for her relationship with Vita Sackville-West, for whom she left her husband, Lord Gerald Wellesley, 7^th Duke of Wellington, in 1922. Vita Sackville-West dedicated to Dorothy her book-length pastoral poem ‘The Land’ which describes the gardens at Sherfield Court which Dorothy did so much to foster: ‘She walks among the loveliness she made, / Between the apple-blossom and the water – / She walks among the patterned pied brocade, / Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter.’ The poem won the Hawthornden Prize and was satirized by Virginia Woolf in ‘Orlando’ whose protagonist was based on Vita Sackville-West. When Vita and Dorothy’s relationship ended, Dorothy became the lover of Hilda Matheson (1888-1940), a Producer at the BBC who rented a house from her in the grounds of Penns in the Rocks, in Withyham, Sussex, the house she moved to after the end of her marriage. Kirkpatrick A8a; Woolmer A Checklist of The Hogarth Press 1917-1946 81. With Virginia Woolf’s The Common Reader. Second Series (London, 1932, original cloth, dust-jacket designed by Vanessa Bell, FIRST EDITION [not inscribed], with a loosely-inserted 4-page prospectus for Virginia Woolf’s works, printed by The Hogarth Press). Provenance: From the Library of the late Sir George Engle. (2)