WAUGH, Evelyn.

£975 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Basil Seal Rides Again or The Rake's Regress. First edition, first impression. One of a limited edition of 750 numbered copies, this an out-of-series copy inscribed by the author on the limitation leaf, "For Frederick Stopp, from Evelyn Waugh, with autumnal greetings." Stopp, a Cambridge don, had published Evelyn Waugh: Portrait of an Artist five years earlier. It was a hefty tome initially, and Waugh bemoaned its length, writing that "a third could go without loss" in a letter to the publisher John MacDougall, 29 October 1957. As per Waugh's instruction, 15,000 words were cut. It is said that Ronald Knox sent Waugh a telegram: "Stop Stopp Stop."

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.