Aldous Huxley | The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems, Oxford, [1918], first edition, inscribed to Katherine Mansfield

Aldous Huxley

The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems. Oxford: [B.H. Blackwell, 1918]

FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED TO KATHERINE MANSFIELD, 8vo, re-bound in quarter cloth and paper boards, various internal repairs

Inscribed on the front free endpaper: "K[atherine]. M[ansfield]. from A[ldous].L[eonard].H[uxley]. Sept.'18". Mansfield and Huxley had a difficult relationship. The fact that she had caricatured him as the effeminate Eddie Warren in "Bliss" (one of her best stories, published the previous month in The English Review) may explain the less than effusive inscription. She had married John Middleton Murry earlier in the year and Huxley would caricature him as the hypocritical Burlap in Point Counter Point (1928). Provenance: Mary Hutchinson (with whom Huxley and his wife Maria were romantically entangled). There has only been one inscribed copy of this title at auction since 1975. A good copy only, but a great association.