Easingden (Signed & Inscribed Author’s Compliments copy)

First edition, first impression.  158pp.  Blue cloth-covered boards with titles on a white spine label.  Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, ‘To Percy and Edith Black, from the author, August 12th 1926 (no signature). 12mo. Cloth gently shelf worn, rubbed and rounded on corners and spine tips, title label a little browned.  Upper text block edge dust dulle.  Hint of toning on endpapers else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.

H G Well’s too often neglected novel, Meanwhile – The Picture of a Lady [1927], makes reference to Sinclair’s work, using it to further Wells’ idea of a world republic.  Philip, in his first letter, says: “I have just happened upon a little book called Easingden by a man named Sinclair and it gives a flat, straightforward account of the life of a miner. I half suspect some connexion between Easingden and Edensoke… I am going to send it to you. When you read it, you will agree with me that it is intolerable to think of Englishmen—many of whom fought in the Great War to save me and you among others from the Hun—having to go a single step lower than that cramped, sordid, hopeless drudgery.  [H G Wells source book.]

This first edition was published by the author in 1926.  The novel was later published by Mills and Boon.  Both editions remain very hard to find.