The Flea of Sodom [*SIGNED*]

London/New York: Peter Nevill Limited. Near Fine. 1950. 1st U.K. edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [light handling wear only]. INSCRIBED to artist R.B. Kitaj and SIGNED by the author: "For Kitaj / An artist who I / always hope be lost, / for he he [sic] imagines he / has found himself / is a [indecipherable] fool[?] / Edward / July 23.70 / London." [I cannot over-emphasize how weird this author's handwriting is.] "These little essays are an Orphic prayer for a Mythology -- a supplication for the return to ritual and to the tutelary deities who guarded bread, wine, sheep and horses. The book is an examination of the occidental mind in poetry and literature, but the essays themselves are poems and fables, having nothing in common with modern criticism." (Quoted from the dust jacket of the American edition.) Introduction by Herbert Read; the book is dedicated to Read and his son Benedict. Signed by Author .