Literature
WOOLF, Virginia.
The Voyage Out.
Duckworth & Co, London, 1915. First edition. Crown 8vo. One of 2000 copies printed. Front flyleaf with signature and date "E.H.R. Altounyan/ 1915" in black ink (with another signature in biro and a morse alphabet in ink on front pastedown). Publisher's moss-green cloth boards, spine lettered in gold, upper cover ruled and lettered in black, some wear, cloth rubbed particularly at joints and extreme edges with slight loss, still a good and firm copy of the author's first book and an unusual association copy.
As early as 1908 Virginia Woolf was seriously concentrating on her first novel which she called 'Melymbrosia', and which would become 'The Voyage Out'. At least five more drafts were written until she handed over her typescript to Leonard who delivered it to her half-brother's (Gerald Duckworth) publishing house in March 1913. It was accepted but not published before 1915 and finally, under the National Registration Act, Leonard registered Virginia as "author." In 1937 Ernest Haig Riddell Altounyan published a poem, 'Ornament of Honour' (Cambridge University Press). It is addressed to T.E. Lawrence and was written in Aleppo within six months of the news of Lawrence's death. Ernest Altounyan was born in England but his father was an Armenian doctor with a hospital in Aleppo. Ernest was educated at Rugby and Cambridge with the aim to join his father. Altounyan had known Lawrence for a long time, having first met him in his Carchemish days. He greatly admired Lawrence and also felt a strong emotional bond. "The poem", writes Altounyan, "was designed as a memorial embodying what I believe to be our common philosophy of life..." However, letters written by T.E. Lawrence in 1934, both to Altounyan himself and an acquaintance revealed his own difficulties with Altounyan's poetic style, "It is not a merit to write, like Blake in his prophetic books, for the very few." (Brown, 471; O'Brien E113) Interestingly, Altounyan's poem was his only published work although he always considered himself to be a poet rather than a doctor. It appears that he presented manuscripts to Virginia and Leonard Woolf in 1919 (Diary I, 275/76) and that Virginia felt slightly uneasy about the responsibility. Altounyan must have visited the Woolfs on an occasional basis. Leonard first invited him in May 1915. However, it seems that the driving force behind the meetings was E.M. Forster whose motivation was not literary but psychological since he thought that Virginia and Altounyan shared a similar history of bouts of depression and "madness". It is likely that Altounyan was given "The Voyage Out" during one of his visits. Kirkpatrick A1a.
Price: £ 1100
US Dollar Price: $ 1600
Stock Number: 41880