Psmith in the City.: A Sequel to "Mike".

London: Adam and Charles Black,, 1910. That is the peculiarity of London. There is a sort of cold unfriendliness about it First edition, first impression, continuing the adventures of the cricket-loving Mike Jackson and his monocle-sporting friend Psmith, who had both been introduced in Mike the previous year. Psmith has endured as one of Wodehouse's most memorable characters, "unstoppably talkative, with a splendid conversational line in mandarin orotundity" (ODNB). Provenance: from the library of the artist and collector Walford Graham Robertson (1867-1948), with his ownership inscription, dated 1916, on the front free endpaper. Robertson was a painter trained in in the studios of Walter Crane and Edward Burne-Jones; a distinguished collector of works by William Blake; and an illustrator, who contributed "amusing embellishments to texts by Alfred Ollivant, G. K. Chesterton, Kenneth Grahame, and others" (ODNB), including the original artwork for The Wind in the Willows. This copy later passed into the collection of the noted bibliophile Oliver Nowell Chadwyck-Healey (1886-1960), with his armorial bookplate on the front pastedown. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine and front cover lettered and decorated in black, gilt, white, and yellow, 2 pp. of publisher's advertisements at rear. Monochrome frontispiece and 11 plates, all by T. M. R. Whitwell. Spine ends bumped, cloth lightly marked and rubbed, inner hinges cracked but firm, contents lightly foxed. A very good copy. Jasen 14; McIlvaine A14a.