London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950

8vo, pp. 223. Original green boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated dust jacket, author’s photographic portrait to rear panel. A fine copy in a near fine dust jacket, (white) rear panel just a little dusty, and with very light wear to spine ends.

First edition of Comyns’ second novel, a barely disguised portrait of her unhappy marriage to the artist John Pemberton, played out against the backdrop of 1930s bohemian London.

Comyns insisted on a printed note appearing at the front of the book: ‘The only things that are true in this story are the wedding and Chapters10, 11 and 12 and the poverty.’ The note was almost certainly inserted to protect the identity of the artist Rupert Lee, President of the London Group of artists. Lee had an affair with Comyns, and was the father of her daughter Caroline, born in 1935. (Caroline was not told about her true parentage for many years.)

Championed by Graham Greene early in her career, Comyns’ work later fell into obscurity. But in the 1980s, and on Greene’s recommendation, Virago republished several of her novels, resulting in a renewed interest in her work. A new edition of Our Spoons Came from Woolworth’s was published by the New York Review of Books Classics series as recently as 2015. But first editions of her books are now rare, especially in such collectable condition as this.