INSCRIBED BY GRAHAM GREENE FOR HIS WIFE VIVIEN
New Bats in Old Belfries
Murray, 1945.
First edition. Original red boards with paper title-label to upper cover, in dustwrapper printed in red and black. Inscribed by Graham Greene for his wife Vivien as a Christmas gift, "For my dear love, Christmas 1946". Loosely laid in is a calling card for Vivien Greene, completed in holograph by Betjeman, saying he was call "on Thursday next" for "a drink at about 11am", signed "Please telephone to Chaddleworth 202 if inconvenient LOVE JB". Postmarked November 1950. A very good copy in a very good dustwrapper.
An exceptional association copy, given by Graham Greene to his wife Vivien on the last Christmas before their estrangement.
Greene met Vivien in 1925 when he was at Balliol and she was a secretary at Blackwells. He fell quickly in love, certainly more swiftly than she did, and they were married two years later. She was intelligent, well-read and a good writer - a published poet by the age of thirteen and working for Basil Blackwell from fifteen.
She was also Catholic, introducing Greene to the faith he would later convert to. She also introduced Greene, weeks before this book was inscribed, to Catherine Walston, the dedicatee of The End Of The Affair. It was this Christmas that Greene began his affair with Walston, making it the last Christmas he would spend with Vivien.
Includes a poem on Henley on Thames, and the wonderful Subaltern's Love-Song, better known as "Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn".
PROVENANCE: Vivien Greene (1904-2003).
Stock ID: 43034
£2,250.00
