KIRSTEIN, Lincoln. For my Brother. London: The Hogarth Press. 1943.
8vo. Publisher’s yellow cloth, spine lettered in red, in the unclipped, illustrated dust-jacket by William Chappell printed in black and coral, priced 8s. 6d. net to front flap; pp. 189, [1 (blank)], without rear free endpaper; small loss to jacket at head of spine and chip at foot, corners of jacket chipped, slight soiling to rear cover of jacket; marginal creasing and small nick to head of pp. 107-22; else a very good copy.
First edition of this novel based on the childhood memories of Mexico-born dancer José ‘Pete’ Martinez-Berlanga as recounted to Lincoln Kirstein (1907–1996), director of New York’s School of American Ballet in New York, co-founder (with George Balanchine) of the New York City Ballet, and Martinez-Berlanga’s lover from 1936 until Kirstein’s marriage in 1941.
Martinez-Berlanga, later known as Pete Martinez (1913–1997), was raised in Los Angeles and studied at Kirstein’s School of American Ballet after finishing school. Upon graduation, he joined the touring Ballet Caravan company, also organised by Kirstein; he was the subject of numerous drawings by Fidelma Cadmus, drawings and paintings by Paul Cadmus, and nude photographs by George Platt-Lynes. When Kirstein married Fidelma Cadmus in 1941, the three lived together in Greenwich until 1942, when Martinez attempted to enlist in the army, but was unsuccessful. He subsequently moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania, to work at a Quaker hostel for Jewish refugees, where Christopher Isherwood was working at the same time, although they had been introduced by Kirstein several years earlier. Following a brief sexual encounter in September 1942, they remained close friends, and reconvened several times throughout their lives in both New York and California. Martinez suffered a career-ending injury in 1947 and worked thereafter as a dance instructor.
The title is a reference to ‘Martinez’s renegade older brother, who died after an accident on a construction site near Mexico City. Isherwood adored the book and helped persuade Lehmann to publish it in England at the Hogarth Press […] Isherwood even worked on the manuscript, cutting it drastically and transforming it to a memoir into a novel. He also tried to find a U.S. publisher, praising the book to Tennessee Williams and James Laughlin among others’ (Bucknell).
Although two thousand copies were printed, very few made it to bookshops: the reviews (mostly unfavourable) were based on galley proofs, and the printed copies were stored in a London warehouse prior to distribution and were largely destroyed during a Nazi air raid (Duberman, p. 385).
Woolmer 503. See Bucknell, Christopher Isherwood Inside Out (2024); Duberman, The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein (2007).
SKU: 2125033