ROBERT HICHENS (published anonymously). — The Green Carnations. A novel.

William Heinemann, 'The Pioneer Series', London, 1st Edition, First edition, the casebound issue, published alongside a card wrapper edition. 8vo. 183pp + xx publisher's catalogue dated August 1894. Green cloth lettered in white at the spine and upper board. The half-title with a handsome colour decoration. Backstrip ends gently bruised and the binding just a little tender at several gatherings. Contemporary owner details inked to the front free endpaper, and indications of the careful removal of a bookplate from the front pastedown. A very good copy. A handwritten key to the real life identities of the fictional characters is laid-in. The author's most famous novel, a satire on his friends Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas and the Aesthetic Movement, published anonymously in order to arouse greater interest although Hichens' authorship was widely acknowledged. It was briefly withdrawn after the scandal of Wilde's trial, but was quite widely reprinted in the US and later on in the UK, with the author's name revealed., Very Good