CUNARD, Nancy (1896-1965) - Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850-94). A Child's Garden of Verses, London, 1902, 8vo, illustrations, original buckram. INSCRIBED, "From Nancy Cunard, to Antony[sic] Eden, Xmas 1906."

CUNARD, Nancy (1896-1965) - Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850-94).  A Child's Garden of Verses. London: John Lane, 1902. 8vo (188 x 130mm). Half title, frontispiece portrait of the author, illustrations, borders and initials by Charles Robinson. Original plum pictorial buckram gilt, top edges gilt, others uncut (some very faint rubbing to corners, without a dust-jacket [?as issued]). Provenance: Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (old armorial bookplate). The front free endpaper INSCRIBED, "From Nancy Cunard to Antony[sic] Eden, Xmas 1906." Nancy Cunard would have been ten and Anthony Eden nine when she gave this copy to him as a Christmas gift. Cunard was a prolific writer, heiress, political activist, Afrophile and sometime anarchist who devoted much of her life to fighting fascism and racism. Among her many acolytes were Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Man Ray and William Carlos Williams, placing her at the centre of the European avant garde. She was, however, born into a life of wealth and privilege, her father being Sir Bache Cunard, heir to the Cunard shipping line and a baronet, and it was probably through these connections that she met Anthony Eden at such a tender age. RARE as an example of a juvenile gift between two people who would go on to distinguish themselves as adults, albeit in very different fields.