Lavinia and the Devil

New York: E.P. Dutton & Company. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. 1926. 4th printing. Hardcover. [nice copy, very slight wear to extremities, a bit of dust-soiling to top edge; jacket has very slight paper loss at a few corners, one short closed tear and associated crease at bottom of front panel, minor scuffing]. Triangular romance story, set amidst London society, the three points of the triangle being: Lavinia, a wealthy, virginal Irish-Austrian orphaned princess; Peter, a well-bred, well-dressed young English chap; and the mysterious Princess Debelowsky (aka The Devil), a cosmopolitan, vaguely Russian woman who possesses "a poisonous fascination for men." A contemporary review suggests that the author drew some kind of inspiration from Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," but the particulars seem to get lost in a sea of provocative chit-chat. .