Reflections in a Golden Eye [Inscribed to H. Tatnall Brown, Jr.]

Boston: Houghton Mifflin [Riverside Press]??, 1941. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine+/Fine-. First Printing of McCullers's second novel, a "hothouse tale of twisted desire and simmering violence." (Terrence Rafferty) Crown 8vo (202 x 129mm): [6],182,[2]pp. Publisher's two-tone grey and beige cloth lettered in yellow and black on front cover and black on spine, fore- and bottom edges rough-trimmed, double-page title printed in yellow, black, and beige. First Issue dust jacket (with die-cut glassine window on front panel) printed in yellow, black, and beige and priced $2.00. Housed in bespoke green cloth-covered slip case and chemise, brown leather spine label stamped in gilt. Inscribed by the author to front fly leaf to H. Tatnall Brown, Jr. (1900-1983), author, bibliophile, and dean of Haverford College: "For H. Tatnall Brown, Jr. / with best wishes from / Carson McCullers." Scattered spotting to spine, faint offsetting to end papers, but a superlative example, tightly bound (apparently unread) and virtually pristine throughout. Dust jacket with trivial wear to extremities and three tiny tears along right edge of die-cut window, but with glassine fully intact (the ill-advised construction technique almost inevitably caused the glassine to shrink, wrinkling and tearing the jacket). Not perfect, but about as good as it gets. Hanna 2290. Powell 339. Originally serialized in the October and November issues of Harper's Bazaar, in 1940. Lula Carson Smith McCullers dedicated Reflections in a Golden Eye to the Swiss journalist, travel writer, and novelist Annemarie Clarac-Schwartzenback, to whom she became infatuated during the summer of 1940, soon after publication of her debut novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. In September, she left her husband of barely three years, James Reeves McCullers, Jr. "I was born a man", she told her friend Newton Arvin. Basis for John Huston's 1967 film, in which, according to film critic Terrence Rafferty, McCullers "work found ideal interpreters in the 'superb reader' John Huston, a fearless Elizabeth Taylor, and Marlon Brando, whose philosophy of acting matched [McCullers's] philosophy of writing. Anthony Slide, another critic, in Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works, called Reflections in a Golden Eye one of only a few well-known gay novels in the English language published in the first half of the twentieth century (among others are Djuna Barnes's Nightwood, Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms, and Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).