
O'CONNOR, John. A Pattern of People London: Hutchinson, 1959.
Large 8vo. Publisher's original blue cloth; spine lettered in gilt; blue dust wrapper with a lithograph illustration to front panel; eighteen colour plates, and twenty in text illustrations in black and white; slight tears to front top edge as well as head and base of spine on the dust wrapper, dust wrapper price-clipped; some foxing to top edge and fore edge, foxing to hinges of internal flaps on the dust wrapper.
First edition. Interestingly, the blurb provided on the front flap states that 'the eighteen essays [are] each related to an engraving,' however, O'Connor himself notes on p. 5 that 'the engravings are not even in the dictionary sense 'illustrations' to the text […] they are complete independent thoughts and the inclusion of their image here does not exclude them from some other existence in the form of painting or colour print.' Regardless of their relation to the book's text, they are wonderful engravings.
#2113251