ELIZABETH AND ESSEX de STRACHEY, Lytton - 1928

New York / London: Crosby Gaige / Chatto & Windus, 1928. First edition. Near fine.. Black cloth spine, stamped in gilt, floral decorated boards. Frontispiece portrait and five full-page plates. Signed by Strachey on the verso of of the first tipped-in flyleaf, as was the convention. Bookplate of the Hogarth Press /Bloomsbury Group collector William Beekman affixed to front pastedown,  small early New York bookshop label to the rear pastedown, else a very near fine, unmarked copy, without a dust jacket, as issued.

First, Limited edition, No. 384 of a total of 1060 numbered and signed copies, 1000 of which were made available for sale and distribution in America. Lytton Strachey was a founding member of the Bloomsbury Group, having asked for Virginia Woolf's hand in marriage - a bold move he instantly regretted. Woolf, then Virginia Stephen, accepted, to Strachey's horror, and he withdrew his proposal. Woolf graciously agreed to it, saying she was not in love with him. Strachey then urged his friend, Leonard Woolf, to marry Virginia and the rest is, literally, history.