Aphrodite in Aulis (Volume I).

London, UK William Heinemann Ltd., 1930. Hardcover First Edition (1930), Limited in 1825 copies (of which this is Number 1575) and SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. First Edition, Limited in 1825 copies (of which this is Number 1575) and SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. This book was printed by the Riverside Press, Edinburgh, from and-set type on English hand-made paper and is among the 900 copies intended for distribution in the United States of America. Very Good+: shows very light wear to the extremities; mild rubbing and faint soiling; a couple of small, barely discernible soil spots at the bottom of the front panel; the top edge of text block shows some dust.; former owner's attractive personalized bookplate tacked-in at the front pastedown endpaper and "The Chaucer Head" Bookshop stamp affixed to the lower corner of the rear pastedown endpaper; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of underlining, hi-lighting, notations, or marginalia. A handsome copy, structurally sound and tightly bound; showing the mildest wear and minor, unobtrusive flaws. Not far from 'As New'. If there was a slipcase originally, it is not present here. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 4to. (10.35 x 6.65 x 1.65 inches). vi, 340 pages. Full cream original vellum chamfered boards, with a gilt vignette centered at the front panel and repeated at the title page, spine lettered in gilt; title page in red and black with woodcut vignette. Hand-set type on hand-made paper, uncut. Language: English. Weight: 44.6 ounces. Hardback: No DJ 'as issued'. George Augustus Moore (24 February 1852 - 21 January 1933) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. There, he befriended many of the leading French artists and writers of the day. As a naturalistic writer, he was amongst the first English-language authors to absorb the lessons of the French realists, and was particularly influenced by the works of Émile Zola. His writings influenced James Joyce, according to the literary critic and biographer Richard Ellmann, and, although Moore's work is sometimes seen as outside the mainstream of both Irish and British literature, he is as often regarded as the first great modern Irish novelist. Moore's last novel, Aphrodite in Aulis, was published in 1930. Aphrodite in Aulis is a lovingly crafted romance, with Classical overtones. A rambling but charming tale of the loves of actor and Homer scholar Kebrun and Biote; and their sons Rhesos (sculptor), and Thrasillos (architect) who love Earines and Melissa respectively. Having perfected their trades in Athens, working on the Parthenon, they set to building a temple in Aulis. Despite storms and earthquakes due to Poseidon's anger, it is dedicated to Aphrodite. Rhesos carves the statue of Aphrodite from Earines. Moore's last novel, Aphrodite In Aulis "affords another illustration of his familiar qualities. It shows us his 'naive innocence,' or childlike visual appreciation of the sensuous, a point of -view one chief implication of which is that an adult scale of values in experience is generally ignored. But this ignoring of conventional value 'morality is a myth' and 'the artist can only teach by giving the world images of beauty.' Characteristically, among the 'images of beauty' not infrequently appear those of that delicately improper kind which delight fin de siecle esthetes. Like earlier romantics Mr. Moore uses classic Greece as pasturage for an Arcadian imagination, and in an age dominated by a naturalism which he helped to introduce, he reverts to an artfully naive, a consciously primitive, romanticism" (Alan Reynolds Thompson, The Bookman for June 1931). "Seldom has an author achieved in prose the exquisite graces and nuances of tone-coloring we find in Moore, particularly in the nature passages, for nature dominates this Homeric rhapsody like an unruly organ tone refusing to be resolved" SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.