Women and God. A Novel. Stuart (Francis) Modern First Edition

FIRST EDITION, pp. 251, crown 8vo, original orange cloth, backstrip lettered in green, publisher's device in blind to lower board, a couple of small spots to fore-edge, tail edge roughtrimmed, dustjacket with a design by Mabel Lapthorn (see below), a couple of faint drinkspots to margin of front, slightly chipped at foot of backstrip panel with a couple of little nicks elsewhere, a few small spots along rear flap-fold, very good. Inscribed by the author on the title-page, late in his life: 'For Nain, from Francis, September 1996'. The Irish author's first novel, scarce; its printed dedication is to Thomas McGreevy. Stuart was born in Australia, and partly educated in England (at Rugby School) - where 'he read poetry widely, greeted the Russian Revolution with delight' (ODNB) - before returning to Dublin; there he began a relationship with Iseult Gonne, the daughter of Maud Gonne, which resulted, once Stuart had converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism, in a tempestuous marriage that, in his view, 'suffered from the constant interference of Iseult's mother and her admirer W. B. Yeats' (ODNB). Yeats had also proposed to Iseult. A combustible figure, Stuart was 'imprisoned for republican activities during the civil war' (ODNB) in 1922, and shortly after his release published his debut collection of poetry, 'We Have Kept the Faith', which won the Irish Royal Academy Prize - but the present work was not a success. Subsequent years brought both accolades, including being elected, in the year of this inscription, Saoi of Aosdána ('the highest Irish award for writers, which had also been given to Stuart's friend Samuel Beckett', ODNB), as well as inevitable controversy - the Second World War saw him accepting an invitation from the German foreign office to broadcast virulently anti-British messages on the radio, which led to a further period of imprisonment. The dustjacket is one of only a handful of designs by Mabel Dickinson Lapthorn, a London-based artist, who gained a reputation for her film posters, and for her book cover-designs in England (these numbering only a few, all for Cape or Faber) and Amsterdam - where she was particularly associated with the work of Sigrid Undset for publisher J.M. Meulenhoff.