Selected Short Stories

London: J M Dent & Sons Ltd, 1971. Cloth. Very Good. FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. 8vo. Original grey cloth, spine lettered in white and black. Spine ends bumped, extremities bruised. Inscribed by Jones in blue biro to ffep: "For Ian, Welcoming him back from the tierras del Cid. Gwyn �". Blue biro ticks to Contents page, plus frequent scoring to text block, very occasional marks to margins. Else, clean, tight and bright. In the striking typographical dust jacket in mustard, red and black: spine and edges sunned, top edge creased, nicks to head of spine. Very good/ very good. Unusual inscribed. A neat association copy, between two Welsh men of (different) literatures, marked up by an engaged reader, perhaps the inscribee? An important figure in Anglo-Welsh literature, Glyn Jones (1905�1995) was a novelist, poet and literary historian. The publication year, 1971, was significant for Jones, who received an Arts Council of Wales award, the first in a series of awards and roles recognising his place within Welsh literature. Comprising stories selected from his first two collections, The Blue Bed and The Water Music, plus uncollected works, the collection includes a number of supernatural tales. Neath-raised, Ian Michael (d. 2020) was an eminent scholar of Medieval Spanish culture and a detective novelist, writing as David Seraf�n. In 1982 he was appointed King Alfonso XIII Professor of Spanish Studies, University of Oxford; his bi-lingual edition of the The Poem of the Cid "remains the standard text" (Thacker, 2020). Micahael's six Madrid-based detective novels feature Inspector Bernal, "a clever and unflappable but hard-bitten detective," and are set before and during the transition to democracy (ibid). Jonathan Thacker (2020) Ian Michael obituary, The Guardian.