With the rare wraparound band.

DAVIOT, Gordon [Elizabeth MACKINTOSH] ~ The Laughing Woman.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Victor Gollancz, London: 1934.

Small 8vo., black publisher's boards with red printed label to spine; together in both the unclipped dustwrapper (3/6 paper, 5/- cloth net); and the red wraparound band with 'The Laughing Woman now being performed at The New Theatre'; THE BOOK a near-fine copy, just mild bruising to the spine tips and the odd spot to the fore-edge; stamped with the publisher's 'Archive Copy' stamp to the title page; THE WRAPPER also near-fine, with faint pencil mark to upper panel, light creasing and browning to the edges with the odd small nick; the wraparound a little rubbed and sunned but otherwise a lovely example. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition, first printing. The the scarce casebound edition (also issued in paperback), together with the wraparound band. This copy originally from the archive of Victor Gollancz. Elisabeth MacKintosh (1896 – 1952) was a Scottish writer best known for her crime novels including 'The Daughter of Time', which she wrote under the pseudonym Josephine Tey. Many of her stage and radio plays, however, were written under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot, including her first, 'Richard of Bordeaux', and her second, 'The Laughing Woman'. Presented here with its original wraparound band from its opening performances at the National Theatre in London in 1934, this play also had a short run on Broadway in 1936. Loosely based on the life of the sculptor Henri Gaudier and Sophie Brzeska, the playwright notes that she "has altered the nature as well as the events of their lives, so that the leading characters are not in way to be taken as portraits", and with the names changed to Rene Latour and Ingrid Rydrnan, respectively. "He is young, French, and a sculptor", stated a synopsis in 'The Spectator', "she is older, Swedish, and a philosopher with a book to write. They come from Paris to London and live there as brother and sister in great poverty. Their incessant quarrels cannot blind — or deafen — them to the fact that they are necessary to each other. They cling together stormily." Scarce with these attributes and provenance.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Near Fine