JACOB'S ROOM

Richmond: Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1922. First printing. Very good.. First edition of this early novel grappling with the personal traumas of World War I, Woolf's first to experiment with modernist techniques that would become central to her style. A novel of grief that weaves complex inner lives for its characters, based in part on the death of Woolf's brother. The life of the title character, who died in World War I, is described in fragmentary sequences "so that the reader experiences the same problem faced by Jacob's survivors - how to piece together his life" (Lewis 112). Woolf's short story collection MONDAY OR TUESDAY (1919) also toys with stream of consciousness and other modernist techniques, but JACOB'S ROOM was the first novel in which she began working through these innovations. One of only 1200 copies printed, this in its unrestored original state. Octavo. 7.5'' x 5''. Original orange cloth, printed paper spine label. Fore-edge and bottom edge uncut. Publisher's catalogue at rear. 290, 14 pages. Label chipped with loss to the "J." Spine faded. Book has slight lean. Some bumping and edgewear. Interior clean and sound overall, cloth much less soiled than typically seen.