WHITE, T. H.

£1,250 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Goshawk. First edition, first impression, inscribed by the author "for Elizabeth Alethea Harcourt" on the title page. The recipient is almost certainly the English artist Elizabeth Aletha Harcourt, the daughter of the painter George Harcourt (1868-1947). Inscribed copies of the first edition are particularly scarce.White wrote this account of his attempt to train a goshawk using traditional falconry techniques in 1936. Owing to its intimate revelations of his personality, White was reluctant to publish the work, but acquiesced after his publisher happened upon the manuscript during a house visit in 1949. David Garnett described it as "Tim's best book... a masterpiece".

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