A PURSE OF COPPERS

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author, inscribed presentation copy. The dedication copy, of sorts. Publisher's original grey cloth with blue titles to the upper board and spine, in dustwrapper. A very good copy, the binding firm with a little bumping and rubbing to the extremities, the cloth a little toned to the edges. The contents, with the bookplate of the writer and publisher David Garnett to the front pastedown and some spotting throughout, are otherwise clean. Complete with the good, rubbed, nicked and creased dustwrapper that has small chips at the spine and fold corners. Not price-clipped (7s 6d net to the lower front flap).

An interesting association copy, this copy from the library of David Garnett, son of the dedicatee of this volume Edward Garnett (who passed away earlier in the year of publication). Inscribed by the author in black ink on the front endpaper "With greetings:- / Seán O'Faoláin / Co. Wicklow / Nov. 1937". The printed dedication reads "For Edward Garnett, / Best of friends, this handful of modest life out of Ireland - much / rubbed, perhaps even with superscription / defaced by time and compression. You have / wished me more passionate and heroic, and I / have said, 'What can a writer do but gather up / the coins and make his own fumbling effort to / say what Caesar each belongs?' If there is some / lovely figure here, blotted by time, and maligned / by me, you in Avalon, will know how much I am / astray. / Alas, that for once, we cannot contradict each / other". The author's second collection of short fiction.