Huxley, Aldous (1932) ‘Brave New World’, UK first edition plus handwritten and signed letter

Aldous Huxley (1932) ‘Brave New World‘, UK first edition, first printing, published by Chatto & Windus. In addition, an original letter handwritten and signed by Huxley. The letter is written on three pages of two sheets of his pale blue stationary with printed “La Gorguette, Sanary”, [France] at the head. Dated 25 November 1932 [the year Brave New World was published] , to [Sir Courtenay] Mansel thanking him for his “kind and most interesting letter” and referring to his (Huxley’s) poetry anthology. In full:

“Dear Mr Mansel,

Thank you very much for your kind & most interesting letter. Alas, why can’t one put everything in? The imperfections of my little anthology are due to the fact that I had been lazily collecting for it [illegible] only a fairly short time [illegible] which I suppose I didn’t happen to read the poets you mention. (How I happen to ignore Villon, I can’t imagine; for I have a very great admiration for him. But when it came to the final putting together, I entirely forgot – as I now realize – his very existence.) I wish I [illegible] casually confess, as you do, to a knowledge of ancient Egyptian! Alas, my version of the poem is Breasto’s translation. Your version is a most interesting experiment. I am a little dubious, however, about the effect of the repeated rime. It renders the persistent melancholy of the original – but renders it too well so that there is an effect of harping almost painfully on the same note. I believe you [illegible] have got what you wanted by the repetition of ‘waits for me to-day’ without the attendant rimes. Yours sincerely

Aldous Huxley”

Condition of the book: a near fine book with stunning clean blue boards. The lettering on the spine is vibrant and NOT rubbed out. The pages are internally clean. One neat previous owner’s name on the ffep. The rear endpaper has a few brown spots as shown, but there is no other foxing in the book whatsoever. The dust jacket is the original wrapper from 1932 showing the correct 7s 6d net price. It was in very good condition, and after a professional restoration job now displays as a near fine example with only the spine showing a little ageing/ darkening. As seen in our last image small sections of the spine’s edges have been restored.

Condition of the letter: very good with usual cental fold and a few associated creases.

An absolue classic of dystopian science fiction and together with George Orwell’s ‘1984’ the finest British dystopian sci-fi of 20th century literature