Enid Blyton - House-At-The-Corner - signed / inscribed 1947 UK 1st HB
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174875504584 ... SwBsJhDExQ
A touching account. I bid on quite few signed editions from the same seller that weren't 1st editions this evening, but was unsuccessful.Enid Blyton - House-At-The-Corner - 1947 U.K. first edition published by the Lutterworth Press
Inscribed by the author to the front endpaper: "Joy Love from Enid Blyton", with the recipient's name and address, I think in her own hand, to the left of Blyton's inscription. The recipient was Joy Irene Maud Clark, who was born in 1937, the daughter of ironmongers (Isabella and Cecil Clark) in Beaconsfield where Enid Blyton used to shop. Blyton became friends of the family, inscribing numerous books for Joy over the course of a decade or so, and was sufficiently close as to send Mrs Clark a letter of condolence on the death of her husband in 1947.
The book is firmly bound in lightly marked, bumped and rubbed brown cloth, lettered in red. The text block is slightly toned, foxed and dusty, with some minor staining. Joy has coloured in some of Elsie Walker's illustrations, for the most part neatly, and with some flair.
Inscribed copies are rare, particularly so with information regarding the provenance.
I almost won the 1943 book below, but I think it went for about £52 in the end.
It was sad to think that in 1943 Joy would shortly lose her father in 1947 aged just 10, the same age as my Dad when he lost his own father.
I haven't got any books signed by Enid Blyton in my collection. I really would like at least one, whatever its condition, but I always seem to be just outbid at the very last minute...
