STEPHEN, Adrian.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The "Dreadnought" Hoax. First edition of Virginia Woolf's younger brother's account of Horace de Vere Cole's elaborate blackface hoax. This copy has a cutting of Anthony Buxton's obituary laid in, describing him as "Emperor in Abyssinian Hoax".In 1910 Virginia Stephen (later Woolf), Guy Ridley, Anthony Buxton, and Duncan Grant masqueraded as Abyssinian royals, with Adrian Stephen as their "interpreter", and were treated to a tour of the Royal Navy's flagship. The hoax was one of the first things that brought the recently-graduated Bloomsbury Group to the attention of the public. Commentators on Woolf and the Bloomsbury circle have approached the hoax with many different attitudes, some applauding its subversion of empire, bureaucracy and sexual identity, and others recognising the problematic nature of the incident in regard to race and nationality.The book was published November 1936, 2,530 copies were printed, but 1,530 copies were later pulped.

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