Books

First edition, sole impression, of this very scarce early Hogarth Press book, one of 300 copies hand printed by the Woolfs and with a front wrapper design by Dora Carrington. An instant success, with all but three copies sold, Stories of the East was one of the Hogarth Press's best-sellers, beaten only by Gorky's The Note-Books of Tchekhov and Virginia's Monday or Tuesday. It is now very scarce, with auction records showing no more than one appearance per decade since 1980. Octavo. Original orange card wrappers with pictorial decoration and titles to front wrapper in red. Housed in a dark red cloth flat-back box. Wrapper design by Dora Carrington. An exceptional copy of this fragile publication, fine but for some very minor chipping to yapp edges, uncut and unopened. Willis pp. 55-8.

Stories of the East is a collection of short stories by Leonard Woolf, depicting life in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) during the British colonial period. Woolf's keen observations and experiences from his time as a colonial administrator are reflected in this anthology.