The Little Lady of the Big House

[4]+392+[2] pages with a frontispiece from a painting by William Van Dresser. Small Octavo (7 3/4" x 5 1/2") bound in original publisher's blue cloth illustrated in black,cream and orange, lettered in cream and gilt. (BAL 11966) (Sisson & Martens pg 87) First edition.

A tale about a love triangle on a large ranch. Though not published until the year of London's death, he had written this during his bad year of 1913. He spent much of that year visiting a dentist, finally having all of his upper teeth pulled to halt the pyorrhea raging in his gums; at about the same time, his Wolf House burned down two weeks before its completion; and his kidney problems continued to worsen, exacerbated by his drinking and his insistence upon eating raw fish and duck. [The novel] was meant to exalt the splendor of Wolf House and scientific farming and sex." "It is all sex from start to finish", he wrote to the editor of Cosmopolitan, "in which no sexual adventure is actually achieved or comes within a million miles of being achieved, and in which nevertheless, is all the guts of sex, coupled with strength. London splits his own role between the two male protagonists, the ranch owner Dick Forest and the romantic adventurer Evan Graham. Forest is London's ideal of the rich commercial rancher of the future, the owner of 250,000 acres worked on strict scientific principles. Evan Graham is another version of dick Forrest, but he has chosen to remain a writer and a wanderer. Both men compete for the love of Dick's wife, Paula, a vision of Charmian as the elegant hostess. She kills herself to solve the dilemma the day before Dick has decided to do the same thing." [Sinclair: Little Lady of the Big House] Shades of Shakespeare.

Condition:

Corners and hinges moderately rubbed. A better than very good copy lacking dust jacket.