1924 Seducers in Ecuador

Description

First Edition, Limited Edition, Publishers' Original Binding

The first edition, limited to 1500 copies, of Vita Sackville-West short story Seducers in Ecuador. The story follows the bizarre Arthur Lomax enjoying the pleasures of an Egyptian cruise. When he adds a pair of blue spectacles to the outfit, his entire world changes. Vita is said to have written the novella as a joke, and indeed it comprises humorous language and absurd elements.

This book was published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf. Leonard recalls that even though Vita was already an established writer, she was the one to approach the Woolfs asking them to publish a "longish short story" though some contemporary evidence shows that it was the Woolfs to approach her. Vita and Virginia's relationship started and deepened after this cooperation, and Vita dedicated the novella to her friend and lover. It is even suggested by some critics that Vita changed her writing style to attract Virginia, who then praised her "fantasticality of the details."

Vita Sackville-West was a prolific and successful writer from the early 1900s and a gardener. She was twice awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature: in 1927 for her pastoral epic, The Land, and in 1933 for her Collected Poems. She was the inspiration for the protagonist of Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf.