L. W. Currey, Inc.

Davies, Rhys. A PIG IN A POKE: STORIES. London: Joiner and Steele, 1931. Octavo, original green cloth, spine panel stamped in gold, top edge stained green. First edition, trade issue. Limited to 1000 numbered copies of which this is one of the unsigned copies. Fifteen short stories, many previously published as small-press pamphlets, conveniently gathered together here. Most have Welsh settings. "Hunger" is a horror story, with some fantastic touches, about religious mania, a theme the author treated more than once. Davies, a Welshman, wrote about his native country with a mixture of affection and honesty that displeased many of his countrymen. He was a friend of John Gawsworth (i.e. T. I. Fytton Armstrong), who put stories by Davies into several of his weird anthologies in the 1930s, and featured him in Ten Contemporaries, his 1932 bibliography. NCBEL IV 558. Contemporary dated gift inscription on front free endpaper. A fine copy in very good pictorial dust jacket (designed by George Bissill) with 15 mm chip at top of spine with loss of "A PIG" from title, some shelf wear at edges, and some browning to spine panel. (#128158).

Price: $25.00