Ryder

New York: Horace Liveright, 1928. First U.S. Edition. Hardcover. Good. 8vo 8" - 9" tall. Sturdy, attractive, tightly bound hardcover, publisher's original blue cloth covers, clean, if lightly toned interior, unobtrusive numbered ink-stamp at final free endpaper, minimal rubbing to extremities, light bumping to spine head and foot, scuffing to spine head, rubbed red lettering to spine, still bright red lettering to front cover, rubbed yellow-stamped triangle around the title. Stated First U.S. Edition, according to the author's candid Foreword, which was necessitated because of the censorship which "has a vogue in America," written from Paris, France on August 8, 1927. Limited print run of only 3000 copies. Augmented greatly by over 45 of the author's own illustrations (!), eight of them being printed on high-gloss plates, including at frontis. Ryder was Djuna Barnes's second book, arguably, but first novel, and she played an important part in the development of 20th-century English language modernist writing, especially that which appeals to and springs from lesbian themes, concerns and lives. Like Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein and others, Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) was one of the key figures either in exile or in celebration of a Bohemian lifestyle and vocation from the 1920s to the 1940s, just as James Baldwin and Nina Simone would go into exile there decades later. She had in her teen years also been important in literary and social circles in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and previously and successfully wrote for The Brooklyn Eagle. Armed with a hefty commission provided her by McCall's, she moved to Paris and lived there for 10 years and wrote for them and other magazines and journals, writing also poems and plays. As is made quite clear from the 50+ chapters here, Djuna Barnes grew up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, and Ryder, chapter by chapter, covers 50 years of her family's history there by stitching together children's stories, lives, poems, songs, writing, illustrations and even dreams (Deborah Parsons' 2003 biography of her; Wikipedia entries for her and for the title). xi, [1], 323 pp. plus additional unnumbered plates.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.