The Library of Stephen J. Farber

8vo. 4pp. publisher’s ads at end. Original green cloth, spine stamped in gilt (hinges repaired); folding case. Provenance: sold, Christie’s (20 April 1979, lot 369).

FIRST EDITION. The Rainbow was published in September 1915 but was almost immediately withdrawn from sale in the face of widespread public outrage for its frank depiction of sexual desire. Methuen's refusal to stand by its author led to a rift between them, as in an article in the London Times dated 15 November 1915 a representative for the firm claimed that the manuscript was returned many times for changes to the more controversial passages before Lawrence refused to do any more and Methuen was forced to publish the book as-is. The resulting trial led to over 1,000 copies of the 1,250 print run being seized and destroyed and the book banned from sale for over a decade. Roberts A7.

[With:] AUTOGRAPH NOTE FROM SUFFRAGIST MAY SINCLAIR LAID IN: "I certainly strongly opposed the disgraceful banning of The Rainbow. But I do not remember if I wrote about it in the press."

May Sinclair (1863-1946) was a British author and suffragist whose best-known work, The Combined Maze, was praised by George Orwell and Agatha Christie, the latter of whom declared it "one of the greatest British novels of [our] time." She also worked as a literary critic and was a founding backer of the Medico-Psychological Clinic, one of the first psychotherapeutic outfits in Britain.