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Hastings, Beatrice (Emily Alice Haigh) : The Maids' Comedy

Stephen Swift, Adelphi, 1911

8vo.. Although her name does not appear in the book, this novel is by Beatrice Hastings ,which was the pen name of Emily Alice Haigh (1879-1943) an English writer, poet and literary critic. Much of her work was published in The New Age under a variety of pseudonyms, and she lived with the editor, A. R. Orage, for a time before the outbreak of the First World War. She was a friend of Katherine Mansfield, whose work was first published in The New Age.Born in London and raised in South Africa, just before the war, she moved to Paris[1] and became a figure in bohemian circles due to her friendship with Max Jacob. She shared an apartment in Montparnasse with Amedeo Modigliani and posed for him as wellTowards the end of her life she felt excluded from the literary recognition she felt her due, and blamed Orage, whom she accused of conspiring to keep her out of literary circles in Britain, and she published a pamphlet, The Old New Age, bitterly criticising him in 1936. In 1943, probably suffering from cancer, she killed herself with gas from a domestic cooker. This is the very rare first (and almost certainly only) edition of what may be the author's first book. It is set in South Africa. She later wrote "In Defence of Madame Blavatsky. There is an ownership rubber stamp on the front pastedown and some offsetting to the endpapers. The book is bound in quarter vellum and paper boards which have some wear at the corners. The very rare dw. has some surface fishmothing with two small areas of paper loss.. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Hard Cover. Jacket: Very Good Minus

First Edition