JAMES STERN. — The Heartless Land. Stories. (INSCRIBED)

Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London [i.e. New York], 1st Edition, Inscribed by Author(s), The American issue of the first edition, identical in all respects to the English edition but with the wrapper price-clipped and now with a dollar amount stamped on it. This copy lengthily inscribed by the author on the front and rear endpapers, a total of over 340 words, to [Herman] Rappaport and dated New York, February 1954. The inscription refers to the central character in the third story of this collection, a fictionalised version of a real person that Stern knew in the mid-1920s, and who it seemed eventually suffered a similar fate to his fictionalised alter ego. 8vo. ix, 262pp. Green cloth with a printed paper spine label. Edges, preliminary leaves and occasional leaf margins slightly spotted. A very good copy in a somewhat distressed dust wrapper, splitting at several of the natural folds and with some over-enthusiastic internal taped repair. Handsome bookplate of Barry Humphries to the front pastedown. The Anglo-Irish author's first regularly published book, comprising eight stories set in Rhodesia., Very Good, Fair