Signed by Orwell
ORWELL, George. Homage to Catalonia. London: Secker and Warburg, 1938.
8vo., original cloth with supplied dust wrapper; pp. [vi], 313, [i]; boards of book somewhat soiled and rubbed with a light scrape along spine, some nicks to cloth at extremities of spine, wrapper with some loss and wear with front flap detatched, otherwise a very good copy.
First edition signed by Orwell in full on the front free endpaper (for his friend and correspondent E. G[eorge]. Barber) and rare thus. Laid-in is a letter from Barber's daughter, explaining that her father was a member of The Left Book Club and expressing her regret that Orwell's side of their correspondence was assumed to be lost, probably during a house move, although one letter is known to have survived and is included in the Collected Letters.
Sold by Judy Barber to Edinburgh dealer,William Lytle, thence by private collector to Peter Grogan, bookseller.
[Together with]:
"Almanaque de la Revolución Española 1937" - an illustrated wall-calendar, presumed published by The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Spanish: Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista - P.O.U.M.), with stirring illustrations and bellicose notes for each month.
This copy was sent by Orwell to Barber from Barcelona in January 1937 (the exact date of the postmark is illegible and the page for January is absent) and has Barber's address in Woolwich in Orwell's hand on the backing paper. It also has Orwell's additional note "IMPRENTA / IMPRIMÉ" - Orwell always counted the pennies - and a further intriguing note in pencil, possibly in Orwell's hand, possibly Barber's or possibly that of a sympathetic postal worker. This marking is upside-down and somewhat stylised to disguise the message: ""VIVA EL POUM".
From the dustwrapper blurb: "In December 1936, Orwell enlisted in the P.O.U.M. militia and fought on the Aragon front till April, first in a Spanish company, then with the I.L.P. contingent. On leave in Barcelona during the May fighting, he gives an eye-witness account of what really happened. Then he went back to the front, was wounded, declared medically unfit, and returning through Barcelona to England narrowly escaped arrest as a counter-revolutionary!".
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