Olivia.

(Strachey.) 'Olivia' [i.e., Dorothy Bussy, née Strachey]

Olivia.

Description: FIRST BOOK CLUB EDITION, pp. 107, crown 8vo, original black cloth, decoration in pink to upper board, the backstrip lettered in gilt now faded, top edge pink, a few spots to endpapers, good

Publication Details: Readers Union and The Hogarth Press, 1950

Notes: With the ownership inscription of Barbara Bagenal (née Hiles) to the flyleaf, mentioninng that she bought this copy in Hastings in 1966, but referring to her own copy of the first edition, 'signed by Dorothy' but now 'lost or borrowed'.Bagenal was an artist, friend of Carrington from the Slade, and on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group - including as the sometime-partner of David Garnett, Clive Bell, Saxon Sydney Turner, and J.M Keynes.Bussy (née Strachey, and the sister of Lytton, James, et al.) made two major contributions to the field of gay fiction: as the English translator of Gide, ...moreWith the ownership inscription of Barbara Bagenal (née Hiles) to the flyleaf, mentioninng that she bought this copy in Hastings in 1966, but referring to her own copy of the first edition, 'signed by Dorothy' but now 'lost or borrowed'.Bagenal was an artist, friend of Carrington from the Slade, and on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group - including as the sometime-partner of David Garnett, Clive Bell, Saxon Sydney Turner, and J.M Keynes.Bussy (née Strachey, and the sister of Lytton, James, et al.) made two major contributions to the field of gay fiction: as the English translator of Gide, and as the author of this novel - published under the pseudonym 'Olivia' to create some distance between the narrative, and the events of her own life upon which it was closely based. The story is dedicated to the memory of Virginia Woolf, and carries an attractive dustjacket by Duncan Grant - it concerns the awakening of sexual consciousness at an all-girls boarding school in France, where the narrator becomes infatuated with one of her headmistresses. Bussy had herself attended such an institution in the 1880s - at the Les Ruches school run by Marie Souvestre, who also taught Natalie Clifford Barney and Eleanor Roosevelt. HIDE