THE BIRD'S FANCY DRESS BALL

First edition, first printing of Stephen Tennant's first book. Publisher's original stapled dark blue paper covers with white paper label printed in black pasted to the upper cover. Illustrated throughout with Tennants eccentric drawings of anthropomorphic animals. A very good copy, the binding firm, with a some creasing, a couple of closed tears to the top edge of the upper cover, a few light marks and some fading to the spine edge. The staples are rusted. The contents, with a short closed tear at the head of the title page and the odd isolated foxing spot or finger mark to the margins, are otherwise clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Scarce.

Produced at the expense of his mother, Pamela, Baroness Glenconner, to accompany the first public exhibition of the fifteen-year-old Stephen Tennant's work, held at the Dorien Leigh Galleries, South Kensington, in 1921.