FAULKNER, William (1897-1962). Turn About. Ottawa: W.L. Massiah, 1939.
8vo. Original purple felt wrappers stamped in gold (extremities slightly faded, light edgewear); folding case. Provenance: W.L. Massiah, publisher; given to his daughter Mary Milne (née Massiah); Patrick McGahern Books (LOA describing the chain of provenance, see below; also with an autograph note with the contact information for the two Massiah descendants).
THE PUBLISHER'S COPY OF THE FIRST SEPARATE PUBLICATION: "BY FAR THE RAREST OF FALKNER'S PUBLISHED BOOKS." Turn About was first published in the 5 March 1932 issue of The Saturday Evening Post and was subsequently published, with some variation, in the annual collection of O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1932 and in Doctor Martino (1934). This separate publication "came into existence as a result of the Second World War. Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939; England and France entered the war on September 3. On September 10 the Dominion of Canada was at war with the German Reich. Poland fell before the end of the month and the western front settled into the stagnation of the Phony War. In this unhappy period Canadian businessman W.L. Massiah, inspired by the qualities of courage portrayed by Faulkner's characters, published Turn About in pamphlet form as a holiday greeting. There is some uncertainty concerning the publication arrangements. In 1939 Random House was Faulkner's publisher; Massiah instead thanks Smith and Haas for permission to reprint 'through their agents MacMillan and Co., of Canada Limited.' The text he prints is not the Doctor Martino version published by Smith and Haas but the 'mustache' text of The Saturday Evening Post. It thus seems likely the printer used Post tear sheets for his setting copy" (Carl Petersen, On the Track of the Dixie Limited: Further Notes of a Faulkner Collector, La Grange, IL, 1979, p.29).
This copy descends directly from the estate of M.L. Massiah, and was located by Ottawa, Ontario book dealer Patrick McGahern: "M.L. Massiah had three descendants. One son who had returned to retire in Ottawa, who never had a copy of the book. Another son retired to Victoria had one copy along with his fathers papers and journals...I purchased that copy maybe three years ago...[He] told me there was another copy belonging to a sister living in Halifax, N.S. THAT COPY WAS THEIR FATHER'S PERSONAL COPY and when they were children he would sit them at the kitchen table and talk back and forth reading aloud from this copy of Turn About. I had the definite impression they were less than thrilled by this. I contacted this lady in Nova Scotia and she reiterated the stories about this copy being her father's personal copy...That copy...is the present copy."
EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE: only two copies have appeared at auction in at least fifty years, according to American Book Prices Current. Petersen did not have it at the time of his first book (1975); he first recorded it in his On the Track of the Dixie Limited in 1979, and it is included in the Serendipity catalogue of 1991. Not in the Brodsky, Massey, University of Mississippi or University of Texas collections. Petersen A21.2.
This lot is located in Chicago.
