Axel's Castle (1935, early edition)

Edmund Wilson's "A Study in the Imaginative Literature of 1870–1930"

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

Early edition. Hardback, black cloth with paper title label to spine. 20.5 × 14.5cm, 319pp.

This copy belonged to bibliophilic civil servant Francis Graham-Harrison and has been signed by him to the ffep.

First published in 1931, this is a seminal work of 20th-century literary criticism, and one of the first to chart the rise of Symbolism and its evolution into Modernism. The title is taken from the character Axel from Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's play (Axel), who retreats into a private castle to live a life of pure imagination. Edmund Wilson studies W B Yeats, Paul Valery, T S Eliot, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Gertude Stein.

Condition

A fair copy. There is rubbing and marking to the boards, and a water stain along the top edges of the pages. The inner binding holding though with a little movement. The book remains in good readable condition but shows some wear.