DUNSANY, Edward Plunkett, Lord.

£500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Curse of the Wise Woman. First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by Dunsany with his customary peacock-quill on the front free endpaper, "To Georgie, from Dunsany, Oct: 27th 1933". "The best-known and loved of all his work", the novel is semi-autobiographical and explores Anglo-Irish relations and anti-industrialisation through a supernatural lens (Amory, p. 323).The recipient, Georgiana Buller (1884-1953), was the closest friend of Dunsany's wife, Beatrice. She was a hospital administrator, a disability rights pioneer, and the founder of the first school dedicated to occupational therapy in Great Britain. She regularly visited the Dunsanys and from the publication of Time and The Gods in 1906 onwards Dunsany sent Buller copies of each of his works, signing some and writing humorous verse in others. She was the dedicatee of The Charwoman's Shadow (1926).Considered Dunsany's "first 'Irish' novel", The Curse of the Wise Woman won the Harmsworth Award of the Irish Academy of Letters for best Irish novel of 1933 (Joshi & Schweitzer, p. 4).

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