Maggs Bros.

The author’s first-written novel, inscribed by him on the title page in pencil to his mother: “With love to Connie from James Aston”. Constance White, nee Aston, was divorced from White’s father when White was five years old. She was a difficult mother and he was reguarly beaten, probably contributing to his tendency to sadism as an adult, and their relationship was unsteady. He depicted her in The Witch in the Wood as the cruel Queen Morgause, and in his diary (quoted by Sylvia Townsend Warner), concisely if ungrammatically described how she “managed to bitch up my loving women”. An excellent copy, unevenly faded.