Descrizione

8vo., First Edition, with a frontispiece and 2 plates; original series binding of blue cloth, gilt back, backstrip lightly sunned else a very good, bright, clean copy. THIS COPY WAS FORMERLY IN THE LIBRARY OF F. TENNYSON JESSE AND BEARS HER DISTINCTIVE 'SEA-HORSES' BOOKPLATE ON FRONT PASTE-DOWN AND PENCILLED HOLOGRAPH SIGNATURE ON FRONT FREE ENDPAPER. Fryn (properly Friniwyd) Tennyson Jesse (1889-1958), English novelist and dramatist, was also editor of several volumes in Hodges' 'Notable British Trials' series. A great-niece of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, she began her career as a painter but diversified into journalism during WWI, after which she was appointed to Hoover's Relief Commission for Europe. In 1918 she married the dramatist H M Harwood with whom she co-authored a number of light plays. During WWII she wrote two highly successful collections of letters - 'London Front' (1940) and 'While London Burns' (1942) - both now much sought after as appraisals of the early Home Front and the London Blitz; her Cornish novels (among them 'The White Riband' (1921) and 'Moonraker' (1927) are also collected. Her interest in true crime began with her novel 'A Pin to See a Peepshow' (1934; later a successful play) based on the Thompson-Bywaters case. Her Notable British Trials volumes include the cases of Madeleine Smith, Timothy Evans and John Christie.