Item #48795 Not Built with Hands. Helen C. WHITE.
Not Built with Hands.

Not Built with Hands.

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935. Hardcover. Small 8vo. Lavender cloth with gilt lettering, pictorial dust jacket. 513pp. Very good/very good. Jacket edgeworn, with a few tiny edge chips. While text block is tight and near fine, binding (only) shows homely dampstaining along bottom. Item #48795

Attractive, tight first edition of White's second novel, a thick historical fiction regarding (to quote front jacket flap) "Matilda, Countess of Tuscany... [who plays] mediator between Pope and King... the most faithful of the lay supporters of the great Pope, Gregory VII" in eleventh century Italy. White signs and inscribes the front flyleaf in black ink in her miniscule script to, fittingly, a Catholic priest: "For / Father K. Schroeder / Helen C. White / Madison, September 26, 1935." (Karl G. Schroeder, 1910-99, was an admirer of Helen and her sister Olive's novels and long-time English professor known for his Chaucer and Shakespeare courses at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.) White (1896-1967) was an influential University of Wisconsin professor, novelist and literary critic -- first female full professor in their College of Letters and Science, first female president of the University Club, first female elected president of the American Association of University Professors, etc., etc. Her half dozen novels are well-regarded historical fiction with religious themes. Despite noted flaw, a scarce title in jacket and inscribed.

Price: $75.00

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