The Cantab
London: Chatto & Windus, 1926. First edition. 12 mo. original blue cloth, navy titles to spine and front board, original dust jacket. Bookseller's ticket to fine book, price-clipped dust jacket with closed tears and chip to upper rear panel. Very good indeed. Item #1760
"THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, THE ECCLESIA ANGLICANA, IS INDEED LIKE UNTO A BRIDE ONCE KEPT BY THE KING OF HEAVEN, THAT HAS SINCE BEEN CAST INTO THE ALMSHOUSE OF THE STATE"
First edition of The Cantab—Shane Leslie's controversial novel of Cambridge University—this copy is complete with the original illustrated dust jacket. Uncommon.
Born as John Randolph Leslie, Shane Leslie was an Anglo-Irish writer and first cousin to Sir Winston Churchill. Educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, Leslie embraced Irish nationalism and Roman Catholicism. "At King's College Leslie fell under the influence of Benson and 'Mugger' Barnes, both of whom were fervent converts and, like Leslie himself, Etonians" (Joseph Pearce).
Short for "Cantabrigian," the novel was a follow-up to The Oppidan ("In this book Mr. Leslie does for Cambridge what in The Oppidan he did for Eton"). A contemporary review, in the New York Times (March 26, 1926) describes the sudden withdrawal of Leslie's "somewhat sensational novel" in response to the reaction of the Church. "Its withdrawal, involving a very heavy expense, in deference to the bitterly worded protest in the present issue of The Cambridge Review by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Northampton, who assails the book on the ground of 'its flagrant offense against good taste and of morality.' Leslie appears to have ventured into those realms of decadent literature which the French authors, Huysmans and other recognized students of demonology and Satanism extracted from medieval literature in the decadent latter part of the eighteenth century. Leslie, in his apology to the Catholic Church, explains that it was with the object of disproving the doctrines and theories advanced by these French authors and of holding them up to obloquy. Shane Leslie concludes his public apology for his book, which he describes as 'lamentable,' and admits with profound sorrow and mortification that his effort to deal in English with the writings of Huysmans and of his fellow-authors as being 'worse than a blunder'" (Frederick Cunliffe-Owen). Bound with a Chatto & Windus publisher's catalogue. Joseph Pearce Literary Converts.
Price: $150.00