The ‘Men Of Good Will’ Series : Twelve Books In 9 Volumes – All With Their Scarce Wrappers Designed by Rex Whistler

Twelve Books In 9 Volumes. All the books are the First UK printings published by Lovat Dickson, London between 1933 and 1937. Translated by Warre B. Wells and Gerard Hopkins. Twelve volumes in nine, totalling over 3,500 pages, the first seven volumes with pictorial title page designed by Rex Whistler, the title page of the last two volumes printed in red & black, index of characters to each volume and some volumes with advertisements at the rear. The BOOKS are in Very Good++ or better condition. Original publisher's red cloth, spines lettered in gilt; top edges red (mostly faded). Free from inscriptions. Light toning and spotting to the text-block with a little offsetting to the blank end-papers. Some light spotting in places to some volumes. The WRAPPERS are complete and in Very Good++ or better condition. They are slightly marked and spotted in places. Some of the edges are lightly rubbed and split, with a couple of tiny chips and a little toning to the spines. The wrapper of book 6 has a slight amount of silver-fishing to the rear panel. All wrappers are protected in removable archival protectors. The title page and wrappers designs are all by Rex Whistler except for books 8 and 9 which were only issued bound with the U.S.A sheets and a different title page design. Some publisher's ephemera loosely inserted in some volumes. The first twelve books (Volumes I, VIII & IX each contain two books) of Jules Romains' epic roman-fleuve, originally published in French in 27 volumes. In America, the full sequence was published by Knopf in 14 volumes, but in the U.K. it remained incomplete. In 1938 Lovat Dickson sold his publishing company to Peter Davies, who issued a few further volumes, ending with Book 18. Jules Romains was the pseudonym of French novelist, poet and dramatist Louis Henri Jean Farigould (1885-1972). He was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature sixteen times. Very scarce to find such a compete set with such attributes. More images available on request. Ashton Rare Books welcomes direct contact.