Malc's Mother's copy of Under The Volcano

Sale Information
Sale 1098
MASTERPIECES OF MODERN LITERATURE: LIBRARY OF ROGER RECHLER
11 October 2002
New York, Rockefeller Plaza

Lot Description
LOWRY, Malcolm (1909-1957). Under the Volcano. New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1947.

8o. Original tan cloth, lettered in red (minor fading); dust jacket (some chipping and splitting to edges of panels, with tape repairs on verso). Provenance: Evelyn Boden Lowry, Malcolm's mother (presentation inscription).

FIRST EDITION, second printing. A SUPERB FAMILY ASSOCIATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY LOWRY TO HIS MOTHER on the front free endpaper: "To my mother with love from the author."

Clarence Malcolm Boden Lowry had a turbulent relationship with his mother. Biographer Douglas Day wrote: "Lowry, in his last three years, told his psychiatrists about Arthur and Evelyn Lowry: that the two of them fought constantly; that his father was an alcoholic; that he had been a change-of-life baby, and unwanted by both his parents; that his mother had wanted a daughter, and had coddled him overmuch. To [his wife] Margerie, Lowry recalled that his mother had 'neglected him terribly.' She disappeared for long periods of time with her husband, leaving young Malcolm in the care of a series of nannies, all of whom were (in his telling) at best incompetent, and at worst maniacally sadistic... [his friend] John Davenport comfirms that Lowry spoke of his mother 'only with hatred.'"

In later years, however Evelyn Lowry and her youngest son Malcolm conducted a long and affectionate correspondence. When Under the Volcano was accepted in 1946, Lowry sent two excited telegrams to England--one to Stuart, and one to his mother.

[With]:

LOWRY, Malcolm, (1909-57). Under the Volcano. New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1947.

8o. Original tan wrappers (chipping and splitting to edges, some tape repairs).

ADVANCE PROOF COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, with "Proof" printed on the upper wrapper. This is an advance copy of the first edition, prepared for distribution to reviewers. (2) Christies