Glass Mountain

Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Company. Fine in Very Good+ dj. (c.1930). 2nd printing before publication. Hardcover. [book itself is in beautiful condition, especially the patterned-foil covers which are clean and bright; the jacket is just a teensy bit edgeworn, with some scuffing along the spine panel]. "This brilliant and lyrical novel is the story of Norma Wardroper, her life and loves. In the mountains of California she meets Max Harder, painter of American sporting scenes; is drawn irresistibly to him, runs away with him to Spain and, later, marries him. When he leaves her for another woman, she seeks to adjust her life to lonely days, to accept her predicament without becoming cynical. The author knows artistic Paris as well as any American writing today, and although the scene of [this book] includes the Riviera and the United States, it is in the always fascinating French capital that Norma at last finds the key to the obscure door through which happiness beckons." The only novel by this noted literary critic and scholar, an authority on nineteenth-century literature who was one of the first to give serious academic attention to the work of Henry James. He also authored critical studies on George Meredith and W.H. Auden, and published several volumes of his own poetry. .