Lot 136
![Mitchell, J. Leslie [pseudonym: Lewis Grassic Gibbon] (1901-1935)](https://media.app.artisio.co/media/104cbde6-0d38-43cb-9e0f-bb721ef57bcf/inventory/1b77a994-ee81-4569-8325-5761d9912bc5/fd304f26-d0f1-4477-a68b-195dbc0bab7e/0001_fXYCBp_original.jpg)
Mitchell, J. Leslie [pseudonym: Lewis Grassic Gibbon] (1901-1935)
Persian Dawns, Egyptian Nights
Auction: Other Properties | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 63 to 255
Description
With a Foreword by J. D. Beresford. London: Jarrolds, [1932]. First edition, first impression, the dedication copy, inscribed by the author to H. G. Wells on the title-page in black ink, ‘For H. G. Wells, Jas Leslie Mitchell’, 8vo, original black cloth, with the dust jacket, American collector's ink-stamp and clipped catalogue description to front pastedown, spine rolled, contents toned, a few nicks and small tears to edges of dust jacket
Footnote
An outstandingly important copy of a rare work by Scotland's greatest 20th-century novelist, inscribed to the elder statesman of English letters who gave him his first major encouragement in his nascent writing career. Mitchell had recently left the RAF and was struggling to make ends meet when in 1927 he sent Wells a copy of his story ‘Ten Days of Sodom’. Wells wrote an enthusiastic response and advised him to contact Cornhill magazine, where his stories, including those published in the present work, began to appear from January 1929. Not long after, Mitchell printed Wells's letter as the epigraph to his 1931 work The Calends of Cairo. Following Mitchell's premature death in 1937, Wells sent his widow an appreciation of his career, remembering him as ‘fine, brilliant, and original' (David C. Smith, ed., The Correspondence of H. G. Wells, 2021, vol. 4, p. 220.).