Plagued by the Nightingale
Carbondale/Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1966. 1st Edition Thus. Octavo, publisher’s fuschia cloth, spine gilt, mustard endpapers, original illustrated dust jacket.
University press reissue of writer Kay Boyle’s debut novel. Described by Edmund Wilson as a "feminized Hemingway," Boyle was among the Lost Generation of American writers in Paris in the 1920s. Contributing modernist fiction to avant-garde magazines like Broom and transition, she went on to pen over forty books (novels, short stories, and poetry). Loosely based on her first marriage to Paris-born Richard Brault and affair with her second husband Ernest Walsh, the story centers on Bridget, an American woman who marries into a dysfunctional French family and becomes trapped in an oppressive home. The title was suggested by Glenway Wescott, taken from a line in Marianne Moore's poem "Marriage" (1923). Originally published in 1931, and reissued here as part of the publisher's Crosscurrents/Modern Fictison series, with a preface by Harry T. Moore and a note on the text by Matthew J. Bruccoli. Dust jacket designed by Andor Braun. Owner inscription in red marker to front endpaper. Unclipped dust jacket with light toning. Near fine. Item #11146
$40.00