VIRGINIA WOOLF

Norfolk, Connecticut: New Directions, 1942. First edition. Small octavo. Blue cloth, spine stamped in blue. 169,[1]pp. Frontispiece portrait by Man Ray for "Harper's Bazaar." Ink personal inscription from the author to a friend on the front free endpaper. Selective bibliography and index. Very good or better, pictorial dust jacket by the celebrated designer Alvin Lustig with chips and closed tears, good.

First edition. The second volume in New Directions' "Makers of Modern Literature Series." Daiches  (1912 - 2005) was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English and Scottish literature and culture. The inscription to his friend and fellow literary historian and critic Harry T. Moore reads: "For Harry Moore / with many memories / of conversation & drink / at Marios & elsewhere / -- and hopes of more / & better of both in / the unpredictable world / after the deluge / David Daiches / April 1943." Daiches' signature is not often seen.

"Mr. Daiches takes up the major books in order, analyzing their structure and intention; at the same time he traces Virginia Woolf's evolution -- technical and spiritual -- as an artist, with special emphasis on the successive experiments that made her on of the most fruitful innovators of her time" -- from the book flap. This is an important book for scholars of Woolf in that it doesn't spend a lot of ink on psychoanalyzing her life in relation to her work.