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WELLS, H. G : THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS: A NOVEL

MacMillan, London, 1913

First Edition, Olive green cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. INSCRIBED and SIGNED on the front free endpaper by the author: "H.G. Wells/to/His Paston." "His Paston" was author Emily Morse Symonds (1860-1936), who used the pseudonym George Paston on her many novels, plays, and biographies. Her recurring theme was women's struggle to achieve independence of mind and action despite contemporary legal and social constraints. In his own work, Wells repeatedly expressed feminist sympathies. THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS is an example; here Wells laments the fine qualities in women that are "entangled and stifled and unable to free themselves from the ancient limiting jealousies which law and custom embody." Vladimir Nabokov considered this novel one of the most undervalued of the century. Bookplate on front pastedown of Henry Symonds, father of Miss Symonds. A fine association recording one of the relationships in the London circle of writing feminists, suffragists, socialists, and birth-control advocates., cloth, Very mild rubbing to extremities; foxing to endpapers though the inscription by Wells is largely unaffected. Much later unknown name on rear endpaper. Near Fine

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