Loving.

GREEN, Henry.

Item Number: 116782

London: The Hogarth Press, 1948.

First edition of one of the author’s most admired works. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a good dust jacket with some chips to the spine. Jacket design by John Piper. First editions are rare.

Loving is set in the vast hereditary house of the Tennants, an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family, but the story mainly involves their servants. The war has led to a scarcity of experienced staff, and when Eldon the butler dies, Raunce the head footman is assigned his job. The other servants are taken aback by this irregular promotion, but lovely young Edith, a recent hire, is quite attracted to the older Raunce and a flirtation begins. And it is Edith who discovers Mrs. Tennant’s daughter-in-law, whose husband is fighting at the front, in bed with a neighbor one morning, scandalizing the whole household. When the Tennants depart for England, Raunce is left in charge of the house and struggles to control its disputatious inhabitants as well as to secure the love of Edith, especially after a precious family jewel disappears. In Loving, Henry Green explores the deeply precarious nature of ordinary life against the background of the larger world at war. Time Magazine included it in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.