Inscribed by Quentin Crisp

Crisp, Quentin ~ Love Made Easy : Signed By The Author

First UK Printing : Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., London : 1977

8vo., publisher’s black boards, lettered typographically in gilt along backstrip, with publisher’s device to foot; together in the vibrant pink and purple wrapper designed by Peter White; The BOOK with light spotting to the edges of the text block, and mildly offset to end-papers; the near-fine WRAPPER sunned along the spine, as is common, with a little strip of toning to the rear flap fold. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First edition, inscribed by Crisp to the half title: “To Cherry from Quentin Crisp". Quentin Crisp shot to fame in 1968 with the film adaptation of his autobiography The Naked Civil Servant. Born Denis Charles Pratt, Crisp changed his name in his twenties, and began experimenting with make up, nail varnish, and fashion. It was around this time that he started visiting the cafes and bars of Soho, working as both an artist’s model and prostitute, and in a later 1988 interview famously claimed that though he was looking for love, he found only degradation. Rejected by the army due to “sexual perversion", Crisp’s response was to purchase five pounds of henna and parade through the Blitz-torn streets of London, picking up G.I.’s. Widely criticised and attacked both verbally and physically, he became a gay icon for his unashamedly open views, flamboyant personality, and sense of style. Famous for his fashion tips and complete transparency about his life and views, he relished the opportunity to meet as many new and fascinating people as possible, listing his name in the phone book and accepting dinner invitations from whoever would offer to pay for the meal. In exchange, he would regale his host with stories about his life, and occasionally give impromptu performances. Love Made Easy is one of Crisp’s early works, and is a fantastical, semi-autobiographical novel based on his own experiences living in London, as well as a description of the characters he encountered there. It was an unhappy childhood and the stresses of adolescence which led him to the heart of the capital city. There, in bedsits and cafes he found a world of brutality, short lived jobs and precarious relationships, which he describes in the book with a dry humour. Set in the late 1940s around ‘Flamboyant Street’, it follows a host of “British dropouts, old and young, rich and poor, caught up in this unlikely tarantella” (wrapper blurb). The stories are based around his own bedsit in Denbigh Street, Pimlico, where he "held court with London's brightest and roughest characters." The novel had been written in the 1950s, but remained unpublished until 1977, when Crisp was at the peak of his fame. A lovely copy.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Near Fine