Kew Gardens
London: Hogarth, 1927. First Edition. Hardcover. 1st hardbound separate edition, the 3rd separate edition of all, and the 1st fully illustrated edition (“decorations by Vanessa Bell”). Woolf’s 3rd book, 1 of 500, after editions in wrappers of 150 in May 1919 and 500 the next month. Original boards, edges and spine worn (not rebacked), else very good. Increasingly common and easy to find, but usually valued beyond its worth, that is, at its fall guy price plus a premium for the wear and tear on the seller’s conscience for demanding it. But our price is the right price. Very good. Item #500
regret, modernization, contentment, uncertainty, love, indirectness, connection, passivity, youth, paralysis, senility, letting go, awe and amazement, society and class, memory and the past, loneliness and isolation, women and femininity, men and the natural world, and different versions of reality. A snail and the flowers contribute their own part to the story, as does the surprise in children’s voices, along with the surrounding garden, its heat, colors, noise and movements. And in the end Woolf’s focus retreats from the garden to the city for a final contrast.
Kew Gardens is a modernist tale awash in the trivial (to feed a modernist, place the food in your palm, hold your hand flat, stand still, and let them approach you). It’s also a feminist tale, originally written in the jubilant days when women won the right to vote (U. K. 1918, U. S. 1920), though what’s still needed is 1 line in the U. S. Constitution saying: “Men and women have equal status under the law.” Contrast those days, 100 years ago, against our time when, in reflection, the history of men’s opposition to women’s enfranchisement, is in some ways more interesting, and in all ways more peculiar, than the history of that enfranchisement itself.
Price:
$450.00