A Short Survey of Surrealism (with handwritten letter)

Description

Gascoyne, David. A Short Survey of Surrealism (with handwritten letter). London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1935. First Edition. Azure Cloth. Fair. xv, 162pp. From the library of, author & editor, Neville Braybrooke who with his wife the novelist Isobel English were David & Judy Gascoyne’s neighbours on the Isle of Wight. Gascoyne has inscribed the ffep for Braybrooke using his full signature. Laid in is the first page (only) of a (quite possibly unsent) handwritten letter from Gascoyne to unnamed family members (most likely one of his younger twin brothers Tony & John & their wife) while at the H pital de Vaucluse, the sanatorium outside Paris where he was institutionalized after his breakdown in 1964. On one side only, the14 line letter (excluding the sanatorium address), is poignantly allusive & evidently written in a heightened state. Folded twice with small fragments missing at its edges. The book’s spine is sunned & a little frayed with front edge starting to split; binding remains uncompromised & secure within transparent archival acetate dust jacket.