The Art of Being Ruled.

Lewis (Wyndham)

The Art of Being Ruled.

Description: FIRST EDITION, typed slip (with manuscript note at head, 'Insert, p. 32') laid in at relevant juncture, and bearing a passage from 'The Physics of the Not-Self', published in 'The Chapbook' in 1925, pp. xii, 434, [2], 8vo, original blue cloth with blind-stamped border to both boards (the primary binding), backstrip lettered in gilt, top edge blue, tail edge roughtrimmed, a few very faint spots to edges, bookplate of D.G. Bridson to front pastedown (see below), later newspaper-clipping laid in (critique of Socialism), dustjacket with backstrip panel and head of front panel a little browned, internal reinforcement at backstrip ends, very good

Publication Details: Chatto & Windus, 1926

Notes: An excellent example of the uncommon dustjacket, which carries reviews of 'Tarr' by T.S. Eliot and Rebecca West. The copy of poet, critic and radio producer, D.G. Bridson, a friend of Lewis in his latter years, who discusses this book at length in his work, 'The Filibuster: A Study of the Political Ideas of Wyndham Lewis'; the pencil marking to margin demonstrates a thorough critical engagement with the text throughout - though largely simply marking passages, Bridson occasionally adds a cross or question-mark (in both cases, sometimes multiple). The manuscript note at the head of the typed i...moreAn excellent example of the uncommon dustjacket, which carries reviews of 'Tarr' by T.S. Eliot and Rebecca West. The copy of poet, critic and radio producer, D.G. Bridson, a friend of Lewis in his latter years, who discusses this book at length in his work, 'The Filibuster: A Study of the Political Ideas of Wyndham Lewis'; the pencil marking to margin demonstrates a thorough critical engagement with the text throughout - though largely simply marking passages, Bridson occasionally adds a cross or question-mark (in both cases, sometimes multiple). The manuscript note at the head of the typed insert is probably Bridson's, though one wonders whether the instruction to do so came from the author.The first of Lewis's books with Chatto, and one of his scarcer first editions - notorious for what Bridson defines as its 'hasty and ill-considered endorsement of Italian Fascism', and expressive throughout of post-war political disillusionment, though it covers an astonishing range of subjects both social and literary (including an excellent assessment of the 'exploitation of madness' for the achievement of 'comic effect' in James Joyce and Gertrude Stein). HIDE

Bibliography: (Pound & Grover A5a; Morrow & Lafourcade A6a)