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The Library of a Deceased Irish Collector
Lot 227

SHAW (GEORGE BERNARD)
The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY TO MABEL SHAW, Constable & Co., 1932

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £1,250 inc. premium

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SHAW (GEORGE BERNARD)

The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, FIRST EDITION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY TO MABEL SHAW, with lengthy autograph inscription on half-title: "Dear Miss Shaw/ On the eve of a voyage round the world on which I am taking your latest proofsheets to read I send you this story, for which you are really responsible, as it was you who set me thinking about the contact of black minds with white religions in the African forest which your descriptions brought so vividly before my imagination. To amuse myself, and connect the story in my mind with you, I have introduced a most outrageous caricature of an episode from real life which seemed to you tragic but made me laugh heartlessly. I should not have dared had I not been well out of reach of your Knobkerry. So now what do you think of the work you were guided to set going?/ G. Bernard Shaw/ 14th Dec. 1932", wood-engraved illustrations by John Farleigh (after rough sketches by Shaw), publisher's pictorial black and white boards, crack in front joint, corners rubbed, black cloth chemise and morocco-backed slipcase with gilt panelled spine, 8vo, Constable & Co., 1932

Footnotes

PRESENTATION COPY TO THE FEMALE MISSIONARY WHO INSPIRED THE BOOK. Mabel Shaw (1888–1973) was in her time the most renowned female missionary in Africa, founding the London Missionary Society's Girls' Boarding School in Mbereshi, Northern Rhodesia, and heading it from 1915 to 1940. Shaw began writing this comic fable in South Africa in February 1932 and he completed it in England that October. The lengthy inscription to Mabel Shaw - there is no printed dedication in the book - was written by G.B. Shaw nine days after publication, on the eve of his departure on another long trip.

Provenance: Christie's, 14 June 1995 ("Property from a New York Estate").

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