"Dreadnought" Hoax First Edition - Virginia Woolf - Bauman Rare Books

"Dreadnought" Hoax

Virginia WOOLF | Adrian STEPHEN

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Item#: 65029 price:$900.00

"Dreadnought" Hoax

VIRGINIA WOOLF AS AN ABYSSINIAN PRINCE

(WOOLF, Virginia) STEPHEN, Adrian. The "Dreadnought" Hoax. London: Hogarth Press, 1936. Slim octavo, original photographic paper-covered boards. $900.

First edition, illustrated with three black-and-white photographs.

"On the morning of 10 February 1910, Virginia [Woolf], with five companions, drove to Paddington Station and took a train to Weymouth. She wore a turban, a fine gold chain hanging to her waist and an embroidered caftan. Her face was black. She sported a very handsome mustache and beard. Of the other members of the party three—Duncan Grant, Anthony Buxton and Guy Ridley—were disguised in much the same way. [Woolf's younger brother] Adrian was there, wearing a beard and an ill-fitting bowler hat so that he looked, as he himself put it, 'like a seedy commercial traveller,' while the sixth member (and leader) of the party, Horace Cole, was convincingly attired as an official of the Foreign Office. The object of their excursion was to hoodwink the British Navy, to penetrate its security and to enjoy a conducted tour of the flagship of the Home Fleet, the most formidable, the most modern and the most secret man o' war then afloat, H.M.S. Dreadnought" (Bell, 163). Their ruse succeeded, and the group revealed the hoax by sending a letter and a photograph to the Daily Mirror, causing the British Navy no end of embarrassment. One of the photographs in the book (also reproduced on the front cover) shows the young Virginia Stephen in her guise as an Abyssinian prince. Written by Woolf's brother, the book was not a success: Woolmer notes that, of the 2530 printed in November 1936, 1530 were later pulped (Woolmer 396). Owner signature dated two months after publication; bookseller ticket.

Scattered light foxing to interior. Foxing to original buff paper covers, paper joints expertly repaired, small chip to spine head. An extremely good copy of a scarce piece of Woolfiana.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
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Boards Hard front and rear covers of a bound book which are covered in cloth, leather or paper. “Original boards” refers to cardboard-like front and back boards, from about 1700 to 1840, used as temporary protection for books before their purchasers would have them bound. Of particular value to collectors as evidence of a very early form of the book.
Book-Plate Label, generally affixed to the front pastedown, identifying a book’s owner.
Broadside Sheet printed on one side, typically for public display, usually larger than folio size (a folio being a broadside-size sheet printed on both sides and folded once, to make four pages).
Calf Binding material made from cowhide—versatile, durable, usually tan or brown in color, of smooth texture with no or little apparent grain. Readily marbled (“tree calf”), mottled, diced, colored, polished, tooled in gilt or blind, even scented (known as “russia”). Reverse calf, with a distinctive suede-like texture, is occasionally used.
Chromolithograph Lithograph printed in colors, typically three or more.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
Edition Print-run from a single setting of type without substantial change. Depending on demand, any number of printings can be made from a setting of type For example, a first printing might consist of 1000 copies, followed by a second printing of 2500 copies; in which case the book would have a first edition, first printing of 1000 copies, and a first edition, second printing of 2500 copies.
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Foxing Light brown spots that naturally appear on some papers due to oxidation as they age.
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Lithograph Illustration produced by transferring an image drawn on a carefully prepared stone to paper. The process allowed illustrations to more closely resemble the original drawings, paintings or sketches, as it gave the lithographer a freedom of line impossible to achieve in earlier intaglio and relief processes. It does not require the same sort of pressure as an engraving to transfer the image, but still has to be printed on separate stock from the text
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
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