Gertrude Stein, Wars I Have Seen (Cecil Beaton Dust Jacket)
SKU:
$175.00
$175.00
Stein, Gertrude. Wars I Have Seen. First English Edition. 1945. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition—jacket shows minor fraying to the spine ends. Wraparound dust jacket illustration by Cecil Beaton.
It is significant that this is the English edition, as opposed to the American, because only the English edition has the divine Cecil Beaton dust jacket. [Why is it Americans usually get shortchanged on dust jacket covers?] The book is an account of wars during Stein’s lifetime, but most particularly World War II, just then coming to its conclusion. During the Nazi occupation, Stein retreated to Bilignin, her country home, and in this book, she celebrates the simple elegance and benevolence exhibited by her rural neighbors who shielded her—a Jewish lesbian—from the German occupiers and nobly carried on as the world around them imploded.
“We spend our Friday afternoons with friends reading Shakespeare, we have read Julius Caesar, and Macbeth and now Richard the Third and what is so terrifying is that it is all just like what is happening now.”
--Gertrude Stein
It is significant that this is the English edition, as opposed to the American, because only the English edition has the divine Cecil Beaton dust jacket. [Why is it Americans usually get shortchanged on dust jacket covers?] The book is an account of wars during Stein’s lifetime, but most particularly World War II, just then coming to its conclusion. During the Nazi occupation, Stein retreated to Bilignin, her country home, and in this book, she celebrates the simple elegance and benevolence exhibited by her rural neighbors who shielded her—a Jewish lesbian—from the German occupiers and nobly carried on as the world around them imploded.
“We spend our Friday afternoons with friends reading Shakespeare, we have read Julius Caesar, and Macbeth and now Richard the Third and what is so terrifying is that it is all just like what is happening now.”
--Gertrude Stein
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