The Whole Story

New York/London: G.P. Putnam's Sons. Very Good+. 1926. 1st (U.S.) edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [sharp-looking copy, tight and square, paper spine label browned, light dust-soiling to top edge; slight fraying to cloth at bottom front corner]. The author's fourth book (and third story collection), dedicated "To Jean Cocteau." The eldest child of Herbert Henry Asquith (British Prime Minister from 1908-1916) and the sister of film director Anthony Asquith, Elizabeth was somewhat the Chelsea Clinton of her day, thrust into the public eye at an early age; her 1919 marriage to Romanian Prince Antoine Bibesco brought her into the circle of his pal Marcel Proust, who is said to have praised both her intelligence and her beauty. (Virginia Woolf was considerably less impressed, once describing her as "pasty and podgy, with the eyes of a currant bun.") .