Full Title:

Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists (see image above).

Publication:

London: W.H. Collins Sons Ltd., 1919.

Binding:

Crown octavo, 7 ¾ in. x 5 ⅜ in. Red cloth, black lettering on spine, front cover in blind; all edges trimmed. Spine: MADELEINE | HOPE | MIRRLEES | COLLINS. Front cover: [full cover enclosed in a blind-stamped single ruled box] MADELEINE | HOPE MIRRLEES (see image above).

Notes:

The dust jacket shown is a modern reproduction from Facsimile Dust Jackets, L.L.C.

Condition is not great - I'd class it as a high good or low end very good only. There are some redeeming features, though - this was the only edition of her first novel, so it's not common. In addition, it's signed on the FFEP in pencil: Hope Mirrlees | Oct. 1 1919. This title was issued in 1919. This inscription does not prove this was HM's personal copy, but it is certainly strongly suggestive. As further evidence, the scan at left shows the FFEP from HM's copy of REMINISCENCES OF LEO NICOLAYEVITCH TOLSTOI, by Maxim Gorky. This translation, by S.S. Koteliansky and Leonard Woolf, was published by The Hogarth Press in July, 1920 and, according to Leonard Woolf's handwritten sales ledger for 1920-22, HM purchased her two copies in October, 1920, exactly one year after she dated her signature in Madeliene. As you can see, the signature is almost identical to the one in Madeleine.

The second (undated but clearly later) inscription is also in Mirrlees' hand and this time in blue-black ink: to Margaret Storm-Jameson. Margaret Storm Jameson (nom de plume Storm Jameson) was a well known novelist who served as an "author scout" for Alfred Knopf in the mid-1920s. It was very likely Jameson who brought Hope Mirrlees to Knopf's attention, and certainly Jameson read and appreciated HM's work: In her discussion of the state of the modern novel, The Georgian Novel and Mr.. Robinson (1929), she speaks of the masculine, sensitive, and solitary genius of Hope Mirrlees.¹ They don't seem to have been particularly close friends, though - Mirrlees is nowhere mentioned in Storm Jameson's two volume autobiography Journey from the North.

As I mentioned above, this novel has never been reprinted and a hard copy is not easy to find outside of the major university library collections. However, it is out of copyright and a PDF version has been made available on the internet: Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists.