After Many A Summer.

HUXLEY, Aldous.

Item Number: 121198

London: Chatto & Windus, 1939.

First edition of this classic novel. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper in the year of publication, “For Carvel James with good wishes Aldous Huxley 1939.” Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with a touch of shelfwear. Uncommon in this condition and signed.

After Many a Summer tells the story of a Hollywood millionaire who fears his impending death. It was published in the United States as After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. Written soon after Huxley left England and settled in California, the novel is Huxley's examination of American culture, particularly what he saw as its narcissism, superficiality, and obsession with youth. This satire also raises philosophical and social issues, some of which would later take the forefront in Huxley's final novel Island. The novel's title is taken from Tennyson's poem Tithonus, about a figure in Greek mythology to whom Aurora gave eternal life but not eternal youth. The book was awarded the 1939 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.