Jacob's Room. de WOOLF, Virginia - 1922

Richmond: Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press,, 1922. Signed subscriber copy, for Rebecca West First edition, first impression, a superb literary association copy from among the 40 "A" subscribers' copies, with the part-printed limitation label to the front free endpaper completed in ink by Virginia Woolf and signed by her, this copy for the novelist Rebecca West (1892-1983). West's nuanced review of Jacob's Room, Woolf's first full novel published by the Hogarth Press, appeared in the New Statesman a month after she received her copy: "[Woolf] has again provided us with a demonstration that she is at once a negligible novelist and a supremely important writer." Woolf, in return, likened West's novel The Return of the Soldier to an "overly stuffed sausage". The 40 recipients of the signed subscriber copies were usually either financial backers, or close Bloomsbury friends of Woolf; West was neither, and her receipt of this is a marked sign of Woolf's regard for her fellow novelist. By the time Orlando was published, West was converted, lauding it as "a poetic masterpiece of the first rank". These copies were issued in advance of the trade publication and were not issued in dust jacket; they were given to the active subscribers who had supported the press's early publications. Octavo. Original yellow cloth, white paper title label to spine printed in black. Housed in a white cloth slipcase and chemise. A little toned to spine but still an unusually fresh copy, some light foxing to endpapers and edges, small hole to front free endpaper near gutter (likely production fault), sound and smart, very good condition indeed. Kirkpatrick A6a; Woolmer 26.