A45 Insert for Memoirs of My Dead Life

Table of Contents

A45-a First edition

Title Page

Launch

Description

Contents

A45-a First edition

Title Page

To be inserted on page 6, “Memoirs of My Dead

Life,” after the words “characteristic of Park

Lane,” line 11, from the bottom of the page.

Launch

Printed circa 1923-24 for Max Harzof, a New York book dealer, who had this fragment set and printed to be used as an interesting gift to his collector customers. I am indebted to Edward Lazare, a former associate of Mr. Harzof, for information regarding the approximate date of the printing.

Description

Height: 7 5/8 in; 7.63 in; 19.37 cm

Width: 4 5/8 in; 4.63 in; 11.75 cm

[  ]8; pp [16], comprising:

• text with heading on p [1 ], pp [1-15], with “[The MS. abruptly breaks off.]” at end of text, top of p [15];
• p [16] blank;
• issued as printed on a single sheet, folded, but uncut, unsewn, and unopened;
• printed on paper similar to that used in the first edition and other early Heinemann printings of Memoirs of My Dead Life (A29-a), with the type, general typographical features and running head of those impressions duplicated pp [2-15], but with shoulder titles omitted.

Contents

This is an unauthorized printing of a discarded draft of material added to the Tauchnitz edition of Memoirs of My Dead Life (A29-b), beginning as that does, but developing quite differently; the two versions are both quoted by Rupert Hart-Davis, in tracing GM’s relationship to Lady Cunard, in the “Introduction” to George Moore Letters to Lady Cunard (A65).

GM was unaware of this printing and first learned of it about 1930 when he was shown a copy by Frank Fayant. Previously A.J.A. Symons had requested permission to have the fragment printed, but in a letter dated “3rd March, 1926” GM refused, saying “These pages were stolen by one of my secretaries and sold, I think in America… I should be very sorry indeed to see these pages published.”

The original manuscript was listed in the 1913 Christmas Catalogue of C.W. Beaumont, London; was later sold at auction in the United States and entered the private collection of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., of New York. It is now in the Morgan Library and Museum.