Edith Oliver, Brian Howard et al. Illustrated by Stephen Tennant & Rex Whistler.
Privately printed at The High House Press. Shaftesbury. 1926. First edition. Limited to 112 copies, this being copy no. 108. Hardback, small octavo; green pattened-paper covered boards, with title label pasted to front board. viii, 83 pages. Tipped-in frontispiece reproducing a drawing of Mildred by Stephen Tennant; title-page illustration and 9 tailpieces by Rex Whistler. English. 195 x 145mm. 0.3kg. . Very good; light shelf wear to boards, light wear to forecorners, small knock to rear upper forecorner, light browning to spine, no inscriptions.
'You
who shall take up this book
during the progress of the years
think that you hold in your hands
a wreath
made from each tree and plant
in a lady's garden
for
as she loved her flowers
she loved her friends
and now
her flowers and her friends
are her biographers.'
(Brian Howard)
Mildred was the beloved sister of Edith Olivier. The siblings lived together at the Daye House in the grounds of Wilton House and Olivier was bereft when Mildred died at the end of 1924. In the New Year of 1925, in order to recuperate, Edith went to visit Stephen Tennant on the Italian Riviera. Here she met Rex Whistler for the first time. Over the ensuing years the pair became very close friends, with Whistler staying frequently at the Daye House and Olivier providing support for his artistic endeavours. In the months following Mildred's death, Olivier was encouraged by Tennant, Whistler and other friends to put together a memorial volume for her sister. Texts were provided by Dorothea Ponsonby, Gladys Meyrick-Wood, Cecily Foyle, Dorothy Tomlin, Dacres Olivier, Yoi Maraini, Christina Gibson, Rosemary Olivier, Gwendolen Plunket Greene, Brian Howard and Pamela Grey of Fallodon (Tennant's mother). Olivier herself wrote the preface and it is her first published piece of writing; it gave her the confidence and ambition to publish further works. A delicate drawing of Mildred by Tennant is used as a frontispiece and Rex Whistler provided ten small text decorations, including drawings of the Palladian bridge and column at Wilton House. It is an early example of Whistler's illustration being the second book he illustrated. The book was privately printed and only 112 copies were distributed. The boards are covered in a patterned paper that differs between copies. This copy bound in a green and white abstract pattern.
[Whistler & Fuller, The Work of Rex Whistler, No. 415; Thomasson, A Curious Friendship, p.68; Lancaster, Brian Howard. Portrait of a Failure, p.159-60]
