WOOLF, Virginia; BELL, Vanessa (illus.).

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Kew Gardens. First fully illustrated edition (third overall), signed by Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, though not called for in the limitation. It is hand-numbered by Virginia Woolf as number 202, from a limited edition of 500 copies. The collaboration between author and artist during its initial publication in 1919 held a great personal importance to Woolf, who saw it as a means of "binding herself to her sister" (Willis, p. 31).Bell's designs for this edition occur on every page of text, acting as borders, punctuation, bridges, or disruptions into the type-set text. In contrast, the first and second editions of 1919 only had a frontispiece and finispiece by Bell, and she was not satisfied with them. Kew Gardens was Virginia Woolf's third published book and one of her early shorter fictions, which "were less stories than theoretical expositions of the new form of fiction that she had come upon" (ODNB). Its unexpected success was "the most dramatic factor in the Woolfs' becoming significant commercial publishers" (Woolmer, p. xxiii). Sales dramatically increased following a review in the Times Literary Supplement hailing it as "a work of art... a thing of original and therefore strange beauty, with its own 'atmosphere,' its own vital force" (29 May 1919).

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