KAVAN, Anna. Ice.

KAVAN, Anna. Ice.Publishing Ice KAVAN, Anna. Ice. London: Peter Owen. 1967. 8vo. Publishers blue cloth lettered in silver to spine with pictorial dust jacket designed by D. Smith; pp. 157, [1], [2 (blank)]; jacket price clipped, light marks to top edge of text block, jacket rubbed to spine tips and folds with light soiling to rear panel, light marks to top edge of text block; near fine. Letter: toning to margins, light edgewear. Photograph: slight bump to top left

Publishing Ice

KAVAN, Anna. Ice. London: Peter Owen. 1967.

8vo. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in silver to spine with pictorial dust jacket designed by D. Smith; pp. 157, [1], [2 (blank)]; jacket price clipped, light marks to top edge of text block, jacket rubbed to spine tips and folds with light soiling to rear panel, light marks to top edge of text block; near fine. Letter: toning to margins, light edgewear. Photograph: slight bump to top left corner, slight curling to sides.

[offered with:] a typed and signed letter from Brian Aldiss (dated 22nd November 1968, “22.xi.68”) [and] a black and white Associated Press photograph of Anna Kavan in her sitting room [and] an undated folder (in pieces) with a David Higham Associates label affixed to front panel, titled in typescript: “Collection of Stories by Anna Kavan / with a foreword by Rhys Davies (from the Peter Owen collection)”, almost certainly her posthumous collection Julia and the Bazooka.

First edition, first printing of Anna Kavan’s final novel and masterpiece, offered here with a press photograph and letter from her friend and fellow author, Brian Aldiss.

Described by Kavan as a “present-day fable”, Ice is a profoundly unsettling novel that explores the psychological and political anxieties of the Cold War. Although it was her final novel, published shortly before her death in 1968, it proved to be her greatest critical and commercial success. This copy is accompanied by an Associated Press photograph of the author, and a typed, signed letter addressed to Kavan by Brian Aldiss (1925-2017), who nominated Ice for the best science fiction novel of 1967.

In the photograph, two copies of Ice – identical to the present copy – are visible: one on the table in the foreground, and another in Kavan’s hands. The harp in the background was bequeathed to her by her mother. After a suicide attempt at the end of the 1930s, Kavan changed both her name and appearance. This included dying her hair platinum blonde, as here pictured.

In the typed letter to Kavan, Aldiss admits his “conscience gave a twinge” when he received a letter from her, as he had been hoping to write with good news following his efforts to arrange for both paperback and US editions of Ice – efforts which had so far proved fruitless. Aldiss ends the letter on a positive note, however, with plans to visit Kavan in the New Year. Written on Aldiss’s addressed notepaper, the letter is signed in blue ink by hand.

SKU: 2124103