WELLS, H G Tono-Bungay London, Macmillan and Co., Limited 1909
8vo. Original green cloth with gilt to the upper boards and gilt decorated spine; without dustwrapper; some rubbing at head and foot of spine and minor fraying; foredges lightly foxed as is publishers catalogue spotted with minor spotting throughout; rear inner hinge cracked but still intact and holding; otherwise a very good copy.
First Edition First Printing inscribed by the author in blue ink on the half title "To Mrs J.R Green/ who read it first/ from her fellow countryman/ H.G Wells".
Nicknamed "the father of science fiction", H.G Wells was keen to be regarded as more of a social commentator and a journalist than singularly as an artist. Tongo-Bungay , an intimate foray into the life of protgaonist George Ponderevo, is just as much an excavation of English society as it is an imaginative biography.
The reicpient of the book was Alice Stopford Green, a historian, writer and Irish Nationalist. She was married to the historian John Richard Green and, as is evident from the book plate of Sir Richard Green, (applied posthumously by Alice to the front pastedown), continued to make use of his bookplate long after his death in 1883. She harboured close connections to the Macmillan publishing house and Well's intimate inscription in this First edition would imply that she had read the novel in it's manuscript form.
#2120675