Description

ISHERWOOD, Christopher. The World in the Evening. New York: Random House, 1954.

First American Edition. First Printing. 8vo. 22 cm tall. 301 pages. Publisher’s three-quarter black cloth over gray paper-covered boards; blue top edge stain. Copyright page states “FIRST PRINTING” with no other printing indications present. Lacking dust jacket. Good+. Moderate fading to boards. Moderate wear to spine ends. Pronounced wear to board corners. Pronounced fading to top edge stain. Spine cloth starting to lift from text block. Inscribed by the author to Selmer Westby, the author’s future bibliographer.

[With:]

WESTBY, Selmer and Clayton M. Brown. Christopher Isherwood: A Bibliography 1923-1967. Los Angeles: The California State College at Los Angeles Foundation, 1968.

First Edition. First Printing. 8vo. 22 cm tall. 51 pages. Publisher’s full green cloth over boards. Near Fine+. Inscribed by Selmer Westby (“Uncle Selme”) to his niece and her husband.

This association pairing includes a first edition/first printing of Christopher Isherwood’s The World in the Evening inscribed to Selmer Westby, who, fourteen years later, would co-author the first dedicated Isherwood bibliography.
Paired with the novel is a first edition/first printing of that very bibliography, inscribed by Westby to his niece and her husband.
In the bibliography’s acknowledgements, Isherwood is explicitly recognized for his cooperation, as is portrait artist Don Bachardy (Isherwood’s partner for over 30 years) who provided permission for the reproduction of his portrait of Isherwood for the bibliography’s frontispiece.
Bachardy is known to have typed Isherwood’s manuscripts for him, starting with The World in the Evening.
A one-of-a-kind pairing for collectors of the author of the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin (the basis for the musical Cabaret) and one of the most influential LGBTQ writers of the mid-twentieth century.