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ORWELL (GEORGE) Burmese Days, FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ("George Orwell") on the reverse of the half-title, New York, Harper & Bros., 1934 image 1
ORWELL (GEORGE) Burmese Days, FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ("George Orwell") on the reverse of the half-title, New York, Harper & Bros., 1934 image 2
Lot 200

ORWELL (GEORGE)
Burmese Days, FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ("George Orwell") on the reverse of the half-title, New York, Harper & Bros., 1934

Amended
29 March 2023, 13:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £11,475 inc. premium

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ORWELL (GEORGE)

Burmese Days, FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ("George Orwell") on the reverse of the half-title, title printed in green and black, publisher's orange cloth printed in black, light soiling, spine faded [Fenwick A.2a], 8vo, New York, Harper & Bros., 1934

Footnotes

RARE SIGNED COPY OF ORWELL'S SECOND PUBLISHED BOOK, HIS FIRST NOVEL. Having been rejected by Gollancz, Heinemann and Cape, Burmese Days was published on 25 October 1934 by Harper's in New York in an edition of 2,000 copies. "In his literary notebooks, Orwell described this as 'the true first edition', as opposed to the first British edition [published by Gollancz in June 1935] which he considered 'a garbled version and should NOT be followed'..." (Fenwick, George Orwell. A Bibliography, 1998, p.21).

Provenance: Estate of Ian Angus (1926-2022). Angus co-edited, with Sonia Orwell Collected Journalism, Essays and Letters of George Orwell, 1968, and assisted Peter Davison in editing the 20-volume The Complete Works of George Orwell. He was also instrumental in establishing the Orwell Archive at the University of London.

Saleroom notices

lower cover with crease/bump in upper fore-corner

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