Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man. With Illustrations by William Nicholson. Sassoon (Siegfried) Modern First Edition

FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION, 59/300 COPIES printed on handmade paper at the Chiswick Press, signed in green ink by the author and in pencil by the artist, 7 full-page illustrations with tissue-guards and numerous other head and tail-pieces by William Nicholson, pp. 296, 8vo, original full vellum, lettering to both boards and backstrip by Nicholson stamped in black, his decorations to same stamped in black and red, upper board bowing slightly, backstrip slightly pushed at foot, t.e.g., others untrimmed and toned, Nicholson designs to endpapers, bookseller ticket of 'W.H. Smith, Paris' to front pastedown, the Nicholson dustjacket a little chipped and browned in places, but in good state, and accompanied by the original tissue jacket, very good. An excellent copy; the book had originally been published the previous year, anonymously; this is the first edition to bear the author's name - necessarily so, one would think, given its status as a signed limited edition (although the unillustrated 'large paper' issue of the previous year retained the gossamer veil of anonymity whilst also being signed). The book had garnered the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Hawthornden Prize in the year of its original publication. Sassoon had long admired Nicholson's work, with a further association formed by the marriage of the author's friend Robert Graves to the painter's daughter, Nancy. (Keynes A30e)