MARSH (Richard). The Flying girl. Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, London, Melbourne and Toronto, 1917. Cancel title-page (that and its conjugate leaf being pasted in); half-tone frontispiece by E.S. Farmer, with tissue guard; pp.320; light pinkish red cloth, ruled, and elaborately blocked blind on front cover, ruled, lettered, and elaborately blocked gilt on spine. Gilt oxydised on spine and gilt of blocking somewhat rubbed; two or three fox-spots on edges; otherwise a nice copy. Scarce.

GB £85.00

US $139.40

First edition, second issue, the first issue having an integral title-page dated 1915. Apparently written at the exact point when the word ‘typist’ was contending with the word ‘typewriter’ as the appellation of the operative. ‘Typewriting’ had not yet been challenged. The word ‘airship’ is also used to mean an ‘aeroplane’. Marsh shows himself aware of the changes of use. Hubin, p.283, listing this title as of undetermined status. Marsh died in the year of first publication, and we hypothesise this novel to have been unfinished at his death: several criminous hares are started, but none of them explained, and the book as it exists appears to be about half of its intended length. As it stands it is concerned with experimental flying-machines and motor-racing record attempts at Brooklands. The following typographical flaws and errata have been observed in this copy, probably as always: p.92, l.12, p.101, ll.3, 5, 6, 7, 9, et seq., and p. 146, l.13, etc., wrong font ‘m’; p.113, l.24, battered ‘o’ in ‘on’; p.131, l.9, risen quad between ‘making’ and ‘enquiries’; p.133, l.14, risen quad before ‘she’d’; p.191, l.30, ‘dracelet’ for ‘bracelet’; p.284, l.10, ‘seems’ for ‘seem’; p.304, l.27, space at start of line followed by ‘andthat’s’.
Ref: JRT810903