Jacob's Room

Author: Woolf, Virginia
Title: Jacob's Room
Publication: London: The Hogarth Press, 1922
Edition: First Edition

Description: Hard Cover. Near Fine / Dust Jacket Included.

First edition, first printing with 14 pages of press opinions. One of 1200 copies. Publisher's crocus-yellow cloth, cream label with titles printed in black to spine, fore and bottom edges untrimmed; in its original cream dust jacket printed in cinnamon and black, designed by Vanessa Bell. Near fine or better book, with light soiling to spine, lightly bumped corners, and light offsetting to endpapers; unclipped dust jacket, with heavy toning to spine, front and rear panels separated at spine, approximately 60% of the spine still present, small piece of spine separated but present, front panel bright and intact except for half of the "V" from "Virginia Woolf" missing, some repair to verso including a diagonal tear across front panel, some edgewear, and a few small chips to front and rear flap folds. Overall, a lovely example, with most of the exceptionally scarce original dust jacket present. Kirkpatrick A6a. Woolmer 26. Jacob's Room traces the life of Jacob Flanders, a man who attends school at Cambridge, travels abroad, and ultimately dies at 26 in World War I. There is very little emphasis on plot in the story, and the reader does not gain access to Jacob's internal life - rather the story is a pastiche of impressions of Jacob from family members, friends, and lovers. It is believed that Woolf was influenced by the death of her brother Thoby at the age of 26 in writing the book. Woolf's third novel, Jacob's Room is the first book in which Woolf exhibits the experimental and psychological style that she would go on to use so masterfully in her classic novels like Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. Woolf published Jacob's Room in 1922, the year that, according to Willa Cather, the "world broke in two" due to the seismic changes taking place in the world of literature. A watershed year for modernism, it was also the year that James Joyce published Ulysses and T. S. Eliot published The Wasteland. Notably, Jacob's Room was the first novel published by Hogarth Press, and the first Hogarth Press book to be published with a dust jacket. The dust jacket was made collaboratively - Vanessa Bell provided the drawing, Virginia chose the coloring, and Leonard Woolf helped design the lettering.

Seller ID: VW146

Subject: 20th Century, British Literature, Fiction, Modern Firsts, Women