V. Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc, 1936, 1st ed. Very Good+ HC

Sackville-West, V. London: Cobden Sanderson, Date: 1936.

English, Very Good +  4to hardcover, 8 3/4" x 5 3/4", xiii, 436  pp.

Saint Joan of Arc. Born January 6th 1412; burned as a Heretic May 30th 1431; canonised as a Saint May 16th 1920. Very Good+ first edition hardcover in a Good - dust jacket. Orange cloth with gilt title to spine, bumped and rubbed head and tail but square and tight binding, one bumped tip, the rest sharp, interior clean, tightly bound. Dust jacket sunned at spine, top edge sunned and chipped, price-clipped, now protected by paper-backed Brodart. Black-and-white photographs with a pullout map at back. An exhaustively researched and referenced biography on Joan of Arc by the eminent Victoria Sackville-West. At the time of its publication, Sackville-West was accused of being overly sympathetic with her subject, however she utilized 46 existing texts documenting from Joan's her family background to her trial. Sackville-West's fascination with Joan of Arc isn't just in her military feats or miracles, it's also a study of a public challenge to gender roles and feminine identity, an act of transgressive androgyny. An overall attractive sturdy copy, scarce in its original dust jacket, brilliant writing in which two important women in history come together.