The author's exceptionally scarce second novel

Renault, Mary ~ Kind Are Her Answers

Longmans, Green & Co., London : 1940

The First UK printing published by Longmans, Green & Co., London in 1940. The BOOK and the unrestored WRAPPER are in exceptional condition. The BOOK has a little toning and spotting to the text-block but otherwise clean internally with a little light offsetting to the end-papers. Free from inscriptions and erasures. A hint of fading to the extreme lower spine tip. The WRAPPER is complete and is in Very GOOD++ or better condition. Light spotting which has come through to the front of the wrapper in a few places. A diagonal crease to the front flap and a small closed tear to the lower front flap fold. Light toning and fading of colouring to the spine. The unattributed period wrapper artwork however remains striking in the removable Brodart archival cover. English novelist Eileen Mary Challans, writing under the pen name Mary Renault, is best known for her critically acclaimed historical novels set in ancient Greece, published in the 1950’s. However her early fiction consisted of contemporary romances populated by characters in complex relationships navigating difficult emotional and social circumstances. From the outset, Renault's positive and sympathetic portrayal of homosexual characters earned her an enthusiastic readership and appreciation. In 1933, Renault began training as a nurse at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary, where she met Julie Mullard, a fellow nurse with whom she formed a lifelong romantic partnership. After completing her training and while working as a nurse, Renault wrote her first novel. 'Purposes of Love' (Longmans, 1939), a heterosexual romance notable for its inclusion of an openly lesbian character, was both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. It was followed by 'Kind Are Her Answers' the following year. In 1948, after winning the short-lived but financially lucrative Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Prize, Renault and Mullard emigrated to South Africa. There, they joined a community of expatriates who had fled Britain's repressive attitudes toward homosexuality in favour of the comparatively liberal atmosphere of Durban. Radical in their politics for the time and place, the couple were among the few white South Africans to participate in the anti-apartheid movement. It was in South Africa that Renault was able to write openly about homosexual relationships for the first time. 'The Charioteer' (1953), despite its classical-sounding title, offers a moving portrait of a young corporal's sexual bildungsroman in postwar Britain. The novel secured Renault's place in the gay literary canon for its rare, positive, and nuanced depiction of homosexual love. The couple never returned to England. After a long and remarkably productive career, Mary Renault died of lung cancer in a nursing home in Cape Town on December 13, 1983. A very scarce title to find in commerce in such collectible condition.The first copy we have handled.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good++