ROHMER, Sax.

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Little Tich: A Book of Travels (and Wanderings). By Little Tich. First edition, first impression. Harry Relph (1867-1928), known as Little Tich, was the pre-eminent music-hall star of his day, and the young Arthur Ward, aka Sax Rohmer, was commissioned to ghost-write his autobiography. It is Rohmer's second book and one of the great rarities of 20th-century literary collecting.Little Tich was famous for his madly elongated shoes and diminutive stature. Film exists of him leaning so far forward over his shoes as to be able to wedge his head into a top hat placed on the floor and stand up again wearing it. Rohmer was married to a variety-act juggler, Rose, sister of the Crazy Gang comedian Teddy Knox, and had previously collaborated on a book with George Robey. The publishers, Greening and Co., went into liquidation in 1912 having had one great success, Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905). The proprietor, Arthur Greening, was one of the more colourful figures of Edwardian publishing: "an enterprising song and dance man, the son of a Clapham greengrocer,... torn between business and the stage" (Rivendale Press online).Library Hub locates copies at four British and Irish institutional libraries (BL, Oxford, Cambridge, Royal Holloway); WorldCat adds Scotland, Ireland, National Diet Library, University of Kwazulu Natal, Yale, Harvard, and Biblioteca de Catalunya.

• Printing: first

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