Huxley, Aldous

8vo (225 x 150mm.), FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR'S SECOND BOOK, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO T.S. ELIOT ("To T.S. Eliot with best wishes | from | Aldous Huxley | Xmas 1917") on reverse of upper wrapper, one of about fifty copies, original printed wrappers, collector's chemise and slipcase, some minor spotting and browning, some soiling to slipcase

Eschelbach and Shober 36

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A FINE ASSOCIATION COPY LINKING TWO KEY TWENTIETH CENTURY WRITERS, both of whom, one in his novels, the other in his majestic verse, expressed the  mood of profound disillusionment with the human condition following the end of the First World War. Eliot's fortune-teller Madame Sosotris, alluded to in The Waste Land, was drawn from Huxley's satirical novel Chrome Yellow.

As noted by Sybille Bedford, "Jonah, that bibliographical rarity, consists of twelve poems printed on a single folded and sewn sheet of 16 pages; the issue was limited to about fifty copies most of which Aldous sent out to his friends as a Christmas card" (Bedford, Aldous Huxley A Biography Volume One (1973), p.90).

Huxley and Eliot first met at one of Lady Ottoline Morrell's house parties. Huxley was struck by the contrast between the works and the man: he appeared to be "just an Europeanized American, overwhelmingly cultured, talking about French literature in the most uninspiring fashion imaginable". Huxley did, however, respect Eliot and would send drafts of his early poetical works for comment. Such respect was not shared and Eliot realised that Huxley's talent lay in prose rather than poetry. Writing in Aldous Huxley... A Memorial Volume in 1966, Eliot noted "I am afraid I was unable to show any enthusiasm for his verse" and, with reference to the 1920 volume entitled Leda, he stated "...after this effort he wisely confined himself to the essay and that variety of fiction which he came to make his own".