RYLANDS WITH AN INTRODUCTION (AND SOMEWHAT BESIDES)

Hackney, London: The Stourton Press, 1988. Fine. Tall, thin octavo. Red cloth, gilt stamped spine. Frontispiece photograph of Rylands tipped-in. Privately printed for Lord Rothschild, limited edition № 32 of two hundred. Signed by Lord Rothschild on the photograph "Victor Rothschild," in black ink, and signed below in red ink by George Rylands. Further, Rylands has made spelling corrections on pages 29 and 34, and on the several copies of prospectuses that are laid in, in the same red ink plus two in blue ink. Prospectus does not conform to colophon as this copy is one of two hundred copies -- prospectus lists only thirty being doubly signed and those were the deluxe editions. In an acetate dust jacket, as issued. Fine, with manuscript corrections. 

"Dadie (everyone calls him by his nickname) Rylands was born in 1902. He was a Scholar at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, where he read classics and English literature. After graduation he worked for a few months at the Hogarth Press with Virginia and Leonard Woolf, who printed and published two volumes of his poetry. He then wrote his fellowship thesis, "Words and Poetry," also published by the Hogarth Press, and came back to King's as a director of studies. Over the years, he has held the offices of steward, lay dean and domus bursar.

"My godfather, the Earl of Moray, had left me $150 in his will, which was wonderful, because it enabled me to pay off my debts -I had got into the usual deep waters as an undergraduate. I also sold my Eton gold Shakespeare medal. I had met Virginia and Leonard Woolf while staying with John Maynard Keynes and his ballerina wife, Lydia Lopokova, in 1923. So, in 1924 I went straight to the basement of Tavistock Square and was more or less left alone by V. and L. I was a sort of dogsbody, wrapping parcels, typesetting, and frequently covered in printer's ink. Virginia and I used to stand side by side in the afternoon setting type. I was very happy." - Shusha Guppy, The Paris Review, Issue 108, Fall 1988.