Among Friends

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971. First Edition. Very Good+/Very Good+. First edition, first printing. An exceptional association copy signed by M.F.K. Fisher on the front free endpaper, affectionately inscribed to lesbian writer Sybille Bedford and the author's classmate crush (writer and long term companion of Bedford) Eda Lord, "for Eda Lord and Sybille Bedford, with abiding love from MF ---- [signed] M.F.K. Fisher Glen Ellen 1971." [viii], 306, [5] pp. Bound in publisher's green cloth stamped in silver; reddish orange topstain Very Good+, sunned a bit through jacket, small abrasion to top corner of front free endpaper, in a Very Good+ price-clipped dust jacket with modest wear and sunning. The celebrated food writer's autobiography about her upbringing in the largely Quaker community of Whittier, California. Fisher was classmates with Lord at Huntington School for Girls and developed a fervid crush on her that lasted for years, hinted at in her 1943 cookbook and memoir The Gastronomical Me. Lord was romantically involved with the German writer, Bedford for over 20 years until her death in 1976. Jealous of their relationship, a younger Fisher wrote to a mutual friend that, “Sybille is very bad for Eda,” and plotted their break up. The inscription is written from Glen Ellen, California, the food writer's "Last House" from 1971 until her death in 1992. It was nestled in Sonoma County on the property of her architect friend David Pleydell-Bouverie; the palazzina, as she called it. It seems likely, based off the warm inscription, that the three buried the hatchet in their later years. An important association between the famous food writer, who was bisexual, and two noteworthy lesbian authors.